Fate's Reflection
by Yum
Summary: Jack O'Neill thought he had seen the last of the quantum mirror. But when someone comes through the Stargate wearing his face, he finds himself and his team thrown into a war that could bear impossibly high costs for them all. Spoilers from seasons 1 to 3
1. Prologue

**Many Thanks...**

A long time ago, well before this novel was even a novel, I had shown this to a friend, who emailed me back that I should really write this with bold exclamation marks. After three outlines, months of long nights of writing, this little idea- which at first was intended as a short fiction piece—became this novel-length monster October 2000.

Many thanks to Cathy, Joyce, Paula, Becky and Dee for their wisdom and support. I have the Stargate fandom to thank for letting us meet in cyber world and become friends. A big wave to the gang at who were left holding fort as I had my (ahem) drama.

**Note…**

This was originally a print zine and is still available in print and in CD format. To be fair to those who paid and supported thus zine the past 7 years, this post will be the abridged edition with some changes. _(Mind you, it's still over 50 chapters. Eep.)_

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

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**PROLOGUE**

_He thought this was the worst idea he'd ever had._

_Sitting on the thickest branch of the tree, the young teen surveyed the ground below. Other kids were running around the park, laughing, screaming, and playing with each other, enjoying the warm summer day while he sat on the big oak, backpack smelling like the bologna sandwiches he'd packed, jeans all grubby and sweaty, and him feeling very alone._

_Not my fault, he thought to himself, wondering if he should eat a sandwich now or wait. He didn't know how far Canada was. He might need the sandwiches later._

_How could he believe that Bucking kid and not me? I'm his son! Not that snot nosed, pimpled freak!_

_He swung his legs listlessly, not at all perturbed by the height. Watching the children laughing below, the youth scowled and turned his head deliberately away to eye the sky, already turning to dusk in lieu of the setting sun. As he swung his lanky legs like a pendulum, one of his loosely tied sneakers slipped off his left foot. The youth groaned when he watched half of his favorite pair tumble away from him—_

_Landing on a small boy's head. The little guy yelped, short hands going up to his head, long locks of blond hair tangled with chubby fingers as they sought to find the culprit._

_"Oh man!" the young teenager groaned. He scrambled down from the tree with ease, dropping down in front of the boy who barely reached his chest._

_He hopped on one foot, trying to put the lost sneaker back on. Then he eyed the knapsack still dangling on the tree above them, and he steered himself and the kid away._

_"Are you okay?" he demanded when they stood clear of its path._

_The boy just blinked big blue eyes at him._

_"Oh great, I must have hit your brain or something!" he moaned. As if he wasn't in enough trouble already._

_Lower lip trembling, the little kid sniffled._

_"Don't do that!" he pleaded, looking around frantically for some mother stalking their way. "Come on! That didn't hurt at all!" When he saw that didn't work, the boy still sniffling louder and wiping his red nose with his arm, he sighed. "Where's your mom? I'll take you back to her, ok?"_

_"D-dead," the tyke sniffled loudly._

_"Huh?"_

_"Dead…both." The boy rubbed his eyes with his sleeve._

_"So how'd you get here?" If the kid's parents were dead, then how did he get to the park? Maybe he hadn't heard him correctly. The child sounded like he was a bit congested as if his nose was stuffed up, and he was going to bawl right there on the spot._

_"Lily," the child replied._

_"Who's Lily?" he repeated, getting more and more lost in the conversation by the second._

_The boy sighed as if it was a dumb question. "My frosty parents."_

_"What?" He scowled, wondering if he was just playing. "What? I thought you said they were dead!"_

_The kid's lower lip trembled again. "They are…now I'm with frosty parents."_

_"Frosty?" He smacked his forehead. "You mean foster parents!"_

_"Uh huh." The boy gazed at him, exasperated. "That's what I said."_

_"So where're your…ah…foster parents now?" He hunched down to get a better look, realizing now that the child couldn't be more than six or seven. He was at least eight years older than this boy was, and somehow it made him feel very important._

_The little guy wordlessly pointed to the road a few meters away that cut into the park before leading to the state highway. "Lily."_

_The teen frowned, glancing over to the stretch of road that cut across the park, but he didn't see anyone. "Lily is over there?"_

_"Was," the boy corrected him._

_"Oh shit!" the teen blurted before he could stop himself. "You mean she abandoned you? For real?" He'd heard about this in the news, heard his parents talk about a child they'd read in the papers, but he'd never seen a real abandoned kid before. Stuff like that only happened on television, and his parents would cluck, shake their heads sadly and muse out loud about what the world was coming to. He now looked at the child with a bit of awe._

_"Good for nothing."_

_"What?" Gawking at his companion, he noticed the bruises peeking through the neckline of the too large shirt. It draped down to his ankles, looking like the muumuus he saw some of the older teens wear while carrying those peace signs._

_"Lily said good for nothing." The boy looked sad._

_For some reason, it made him very mad. Even his dad didn't say that to him. Sure the old man yelled a lot but he never used those spiteful words. The teen wondered how any grownup could think of saying such things._

_Especially to a scruffy baby like him, he thought, eyeing the bare feet, the small hands that clutched the shirt's edge, and the bag of books on the ground._

_"Good for nothing," the boy repeated._

_"Don't say that!" the teen snapped._

_Ducking his head, the boy kept quiet._

_Seeing this, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair as he'd often seen his dad do. Now he knew why. "Sorry." He paused. "Say…I don't even know your name. Mine's Jack. Well, actually…it's Jonathan. Jonathan O'Neill. But you could call me Jack. "_

_"Daniel Jackson," the kid said solemnly, sticking out a dirty hand._

_Jack took the hand and shook it. Strangely enough, he didn't feel funny shaking the smaller hand. "Nice to meet you, Daniel Jackson. Can I call you Danny?"_

_Daniel made a sad face. "Daddy called me that. Only him."_

_"Oh…sorry." Jack paused. "Okay, how about Dan?"_

_"Why not Daniel?" He wanted to know._

_"Because it sounds so…so…boring!" Jack protested._

_"I like the name Jon...athan. Or John," the boy said it carefully, pronouncing it right the first time._

_Jack grinned. "Hey, you said it pretty good."_

_"Like words…sounds nice…even the not English ones." Daniel looked up shyly with a small smile._

_Jack shrugged. "Wouldn't know. Words are okay. I like baseball more." He scowled. "But I don't like that name Jonathan. My dad only says it when he's mad. Call me Jack instead."_

_"Does your daddy say Jonathan a lot?" Daniel asked softly, his huge blue eyes wide with concern._

_Jack tilted his head and thought about it for a second. "Nope…now that I think about it. Not really." He eyed his companion before bending forward and resting his hands on his knees. "Say…do you want to go home with me, Dan?"_

_The youngster looked at him silently; hands that had been twisting the shirt hem stilled. "Home?" Dan repeated the word as if it was a new word._

_"Yeah." Jack grinned. "You might even save my as…I mean, butt. Can't raise all heck at me with you there."_

_"You in trouble?" Daniel guessed._

_Jack groaned. "Man! I am in so much trouble! And it's all Larry Bucking's fault!"_

_"Is your daddy going to call you Jonathan?" Dan asked worriedly._

_"Not if you come home with me." Jack paused. "Or do you want to wait for Lily?"_

_The troubled gaze went to the road, then back to Jack. Huge blue eyes blinked at the young teenager. "Lily hits me."_

_"Yeah." Jack guessed that was what the bruises were._

_"I'll go with you," Daniel decided with a small nod. He bent over and grabbed his bag of books._

_"Cool!" Jack grinned. Well, his behind was probably saved. One look at him and his parents would probably be distracted by the sad puppy appearance of the kid._

_Jack grinned wider. "Yours?" He nodded towards the bag._

_"Daddy's." Daniel sounded sad. "Lily sold some to a big man I don't know. All left here." His short fingers curled around the bag anxiously, and Dan looked at him apprehensively as if worried Jack might do the same._

_Jack frowned. "Come on, Dan. I'll have you meet my mom. She wouldn't sell your daddy's books to anyone." He tugged at the bag until Daniel finally relented. The teenager took the bag the boy held on to so protectively before. It was really heavy, and Jack wondered how this reed of a child was able to carry it all the way from the road Lily had left him by. He gave once last glance at the knapsack still hanging on the tree and shrugged. There was nothing important in there anyway. "Just this way. I don't live too far from here."_

_Daniel nodded, stuck his hands in his shorts' pockets, and dutifully followed Jack, feet stepping on the trampled grass the older kid stomped over._

_The teen paused, looking down at the hunched posture._

_"You shouldn't do that," Jack warned, not knowing why it bothered him. "You look like a wimp. People will bully you if you look like that."_

_"Wimp?"_

_"Ah…a person who's weak…always scared," Jack tried to explain._

_Daniel blinked. "But I am scared."_

_Taken aback, Jack didn't know how to respond. He'd never met anyone willing to admit being scared. Saying that usually got your back up against the yard's fence and your money in school bully George Stum's greedy pockets._

_Clearing his throat, Jack extended a hand. "Don't be. Just hold my hand…um…nothing to be scared of. I'm here." He wiggled his fingers in front of the child, offering his open palm._

_Daniel stared at the offered hand for a moment, pulled out one of his own, and shyly placed it on Jack's larger palm._

_Feeling very weird all of a sudden, Jack couldn't figure out why his mind was telling him to hold on very tight. He shrugged, pretending it was no big deal and guided Daniel out of the park towards the road leading to his house._


	2. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

"I wouldn't touch that if I were you!" Colonel Jack O'Neill warned his archeologist before the young man could reach out a curious hand. The team leader ran fingers through his short hair, silently wondering if another gray one had popped up there. It seemed like after every mission, he would find another. His foot tapping near the white carved coverstone the DHD sat on top of, Jack glared at the curious scientist, the one person he was certain was responsible for ninety-nine point nine percent of his graying follicles.

Doctor Daniel Jackson rolled his eyes, dropping his hands before he could make contact with the shiny surface. It was astonishing. He didn't know why the probe didn't pick up on this. All the MALP gave back to them when it first transmitted were images of charcoal black, stone walls and rubble, the digital scans murky at best due to the darkness.

When SG-1 came through the Stargate to P9H-521, the first thing they saw were the walls again—tall smooth stone seeming to disappear out of their sight above. Daniel wove around rusted looking figurines discarded all over the room like a giant scattered chessboard, relying on his flashlight to show him where to walk. He hopped up a few inches onto the coverstone in the center of the room, giving it an admiring glance as he felt the raised relief of symbols on white stone smooth as glass under his boots.

Lightning flashed and rumbled in the distance, outside the structure they were in, but it was unreliable to depend on to see the chamber clearly. So Daniel swung around his flashlight, followed by the rest of the team simultaneously turning on their flares for more lighting. Sam called out she was activating the MALP probe's spotlight, and the bright glare spread across the area. Daniel nearly dropped his flashlight when the fine details revealed themselves from the shadows.

The rust colored walls towered at least sixty feet over them, capping off to a dome ceiling decorated with twisted and intricate patterns carved in stone cracked with age. The heavy panels set in place by girders were made of what appeared to be bronze. Some of them looked like distorted faces, dancing figures on rock, their shadows moving when the flashlights skimmed over them. Lightning pounded against the structure, revealing its presence in sporadic bursts of light through cracks on the ceiling. In front of the Stargate and the DHD platform stood one wall also made of smooth black stone. But unlike the other adjacent walls, this one was shiny like a mirror.

The Stargate itself was perfectly reflected off the wall's surface, gleaming with an iridescent glow like highly polished metal. Even Jack, who normally would just give a half-impressed grunt towards anything that didn't stand on two legs, stopped to gape at the structure before him. When he sighted it, he'd tilted his cap back to see better. He'd even whistled as he scanned its height.

"I'm reading some faint energy levels here, sir," Major Samantha Carter reported as she waved the Geiger counter over the reflective wall. Her own image shimmered before her like a watery reflection; blonde hair neatly tucked back under a helmet like hers, dressed in the regular fatigues and Kevlar vest. She stopped to stare at the mesmerizing surface. The astrophysicist seemed tempted to touch the surface, even going as far as reaching out to the wall tentatively. But military training and a sense of practicality made her drop her hand and look back down on her scanners instead. "They're fluctuating. This thing, whatever it is, is still working, sir." She glanced over to her CO after her report.

"In other words, don't touch!" Jack wagged a finger back at Daniel, seeing the young man going near the wall with eyes which resembled huge blue plates, his mouth agape in amazement.

Muttering to himself, Daniel threw up his hands in frustration and backed away as he waited for Carter to finish her analysis. He rocked on his heels, hands in pockets, looking wistfully at the wall.

Jack bit back the smile. He doubt Daniel could hold out for very long. It was like waving a piece of candy at a kid and not offering a bite. And the way Daniel was looking at the wall, waiting for the okay, it might as well be the universe's largest lollipop. Normally, he would have been irritated, apprehensive of the energy so characteristic of his friend. Such eagerness usually got Daniel in more trouble than he could list. But it'd just been a few short weeks since Daniel lost Sha're; only a little over a month since he found her on Abydos only to lose her for good. Daniel had fallen into a sort of automatic system: work when needed, talk when spoken to; the light dulled from his eyes as a shell of what he was did everything like he was supposed to and nothing more. O'Neill hadn't realized how quiet things could be until Daniel fell into a grieving silence, and the team could only watch helplessly as he brooded. It was nice to finally see the curiosity emerging out again. Jack crossed his arms and allowed himself the smile after all. It was good to have him back.

"Maybe it's a conductor of energy, judging by the readings," Carter murmured, still taking down the measurements. Her eyes kept darting back to her own reflection.

"What do you suppose it is?" Daniel murmured, extended a hand before jerking it back, remembering Jack's warning. He guiltily looked over his shoulder to the other man.

_Then again_, Jack thought, smile fading as he admonished the sheepish archeologist with a scowl.

Thunder chose that moment to crackle across the sky, flashing its electric light through cracks in the ceiling. Jack looked up and frowned. The building had definitely seen better days. He could have sworn the roof shook under nature's onslaught. Automatically, he didn't know why, his hands gripped his rifle a little tighter.

"It does not appear to be Goa'uld," a deep voice spoke up. Formerly one of Apophis' Jaffa, Teal'c studied the statues lining the entire room with a slight frown, an extreme considering his usual stoic expression. "They do look familiar, however." He paced the chamber in a tight circle, studying his surroundings, eyeing the many doorways lurking within the shadows but did not venture towards them.

"And there are many rooms I can see from here, O'Neill." The Jaffa didn't sound like he was happy about that.

_Too many places for the bad guys to hide_, Jack thought, silently agreeing with the unspoken concern from Teal'c. He nodded to the alien warrior, signaling he too concurred they needed to be extra careful. Maybe he should consider them checking out some of the closer rooms to make sure—

"That's it!" Daniel exclaimed, clapping his hands together when it came to him.

Jack jumped. "Daniel!" he snapped. _There's that new gray hair. _He glared. "Those kind of antics could accidentally get a bullet up your ass!"

"Huh?" Daniel blinked towards O'Neill, baffled.

Exasperated, Jack shook his head. "Never mind. Now what's got your underwear all in a bunch?"

Teal'c raised an eyebrow, looking over at Daniel with mild concern.

"Ignore him, Teal'c," Daniel sighed. "Jack is always full of clichés even I haven't heard."

"Daniel." O'Neill crossed his arms, lips pursed.

Jackson blinked once more and smiled sheepishly. "Oh…yeah. I thought this place felt familiar. Remember P3R-233?" Daniel asked, sweeping a hand across the massive room, the other pushing up glasses which never seemed to stay on his nose.

Jack frowned. Why did everyone assume he would remember every single coordinate they'd been to? "As if I have a Rolodex of planets' coordinates in my head. Spit it out!" he growled.

"Um…the planet where the quantum mirror took me to that alternate—"

"Okay, okay! I remember!" O'Neill scowled. He could still feel the surge of acid in his stomach when the team had turned around to suddenly find their young teammate gone. After frantic hours of searching, Daniel unexpectedly turned up, badly injured by a Goa'uld staff weapon, burdened with the foreboding news of an imminent attack from Apophis.

Oh yeah, Jack remembered that planet. It was the kind of memory that stuck like glue.

Or like a stubborn bloodstain.

"Are you saying this planet is similar to P3R-233?" Sam asked, quick to make the connection.

Daniel nodded fervently. He turned clockwise, his hands waving towards certain sections, looking oddly like a galactic tour guide to Jack. "The set up is almost the same, and there are tables over there." He pointed to the rooms behind them. "With clear indications they serve as a sort of lab. Remember how there were rooms on P3R-233? I suspect there might be even more artifacts like—"

"Daniel," Jack said in a stern voice, trying to get him back on track.

"Huh? Oh, sorry. Anyway, the décor and the carvings on the walls are similar. The only thing different here is that the DHD is set up on top of that coverstone. I don't see any sort of quantum mirror and P3R-233 definitely didn't have a wall anywhere in its facility. Of course the condition of P3R-233 was poor, and it could be when the Goa'uld attacked there, walls like this one could have been destroyed..." Daniel trailed off, deep in thought, forgetting he was speaking to an audience. Jack exchanged an exasperated glance with Carter, who looked away to hide her amusement. O'Neill opened his mouth to prod Daniel on, but the archeologist continued, unknowingly interrupting Jack.

"Or maybe...It may hold some sort of religious significance." Jackson didn't see the dirty look the colonel was giving Carter as she tried not to snicker. "I might be able to make a better comparison once I take a look at those rooms," Daniel went on, about to point out more similarities when the place began to shake. He looked around him warily. "Uh…Jack?"

"Damn. That doesn't feel right." O'Neill eyed the towering walls, the mirrored one in particular with concern. Lightning rumbled once again, and the room shook in unison. "Daniel, dial us out of here before this room caves in."

"B-but we haven't—" Daniel yelped when a piece of the roof landed in front of him, shattering into sharp shrapnel. He grimaced as he felt pieces cutting his arms and neck.

"Daniel?" Jack called out before he suddenly found himself on the ground. Teal'c helped Sam back up, the two reporting they were fine. When the colonel received no immediate response from the archeologist, he lifted up his head, searching as he called out more sharply. "Daniel!"

"I'm okay," Daniel shouted back as he stumbled to the DHD.

The rocking grew worse, and Daniel found himself on his knees, clutching the bottom side of the device for dear life, his fingers digging into the beveled edge underneath to brace himself. It felt like he was on a boat, lurching and tilting under a stormy sea. Daniel gritted his teeth and got up only to lose his balance again, his fingers sliding across the DHD edge as he sought to stay on his feet. His forehead banged into the curved edge, and Daniel saw the room light up in stars. Dazed, he was half tempted to sit there on the raised platform before he heard the rest of the team as they avoided debris from the roof. Finally, he groped around for the symbols, one hand still grabbing the bottom edge for support, the other slapping the symbols frantically as the planet seemed to buck underneath them. In seconds, the Stargate sparkled to life. It apparently reacted with the structure though, because suddenly, the vibrations grew worse.

Jack, not waiting for any more protests, grabbed Daniel roughly by the wrist where the GDO was strapped on securely and punched the code in since the archeologist seemed too dazed to do it himself. It went green as the code was accepted. Jack found himself clutching the DHD edge himself as the planet heaved. He could hear the MALP's light bulb shatter, the flares tumbling away, giving up its light. And they found themselves tripping around in the dark once more.

Growling, wishing for once a mission would just run like clockwork, Jack half dragged Daniel off the coverstone and DHD and hauled him through the Stargate, barking over his shoulder for the others to follow. Teal'c and Sam, who gave one last concerned glance at the now shimmering wall, ran through without any delay. With a whoosh, the wormhole vanished after their departure.

The ground stilled.

Until—

The wall flared up in a brilliant flash of light and then dulled. Suddenly, it flickered, the image of the Stargate SG-1 departed from was replaced with another Stargate with its own DHD and similar spinning column of light bursting out of its ring. The double sparked into life, all seven chevrons lit, its event horizon evening out to a smooth surface.

Two figures stumbled out of the duplicate Stargate, the smaller of the pair cloaked with a brown robe. His companion was in a dark black jumpsuit with a similar cloak draped over, his face hooded as well. An odd mesh like plate covered the front, peeking out from the cloak's flaps.

Pale arms flung out, and the smaller one fell to the ground. The other looked back anxiously at the now idle Stargate they'd come from. The light from the wormhole had gone, leaving them in darkness. The stranger knelt beside his fallen companion, a hand gripping the other's shoulder tightly.

"You okay?" the one standing anxiously asked.

The smaller one was silent, still trying to collect his strength. For a long moment, all that could be heard was heavy gasping, the struggle for air. With a half nod, the downed traveler signaled to be let up. The taller man helped the other up, one hand gripping a trembling forearm tightly. When he leaned against the mesh surface under the robe, they both cringed. The friend swore softly, reached under and pulled the metal item off, tossing it to the ground without any hesitation. It landed with a loud clang, and the sound echoed throughout the chambers, rivaling the rumbling of the lightning storm outside that seemed to start up at their arrival. Others followed until the jumpsuit and the thin black T-shirt underneath was exposed which was concealed with a quick yank of the jumpsuit's zipper. A free hand patted down the outfit. A nod signaled satisfaction that all pieces of metal armor were gone.

The taller visitor carefully led his companion off to the side and propped him up against a statue. They paused before turning away to stumble in the dark, groping around for the DHD until tripping over the coverstone it was on. Boots stepped on top of it, taking no notice of the details of the coverstone. Fumbling fingers felt the contours of the device. A grunt informed the other of the discovery. "We'd better—"

At the sound of the first chevron locking, he whipped towards it. "Shit! They're following after us! They must have seen the symbols." The taller man hurried back over to his resting comrade. "Can you walk?"

"Y-yes…" The reply was barely audible.

Helping his friend up, the larger man half carried, half supported the other and stumbled away from the Stargate, its inner track already rotating to lock on the first symbol. As they reached the dividing mirrored wall, they didn't see it vanish with barely a spark. The pair passed through where it should have been.

"We can't dial out now. We better find a place to…" The tired voice trailed off when the stronger of the two turned around and saw the twin Stargate quietly standing there in the darkness. "What the? There's another Stargate here!"

Second chevron locked.

"A second Stargate?" the smaller one whispered, hands reaching out to clutch the other's forearm. "How is that possible?"

"Who cares?" came the curt answer. "Can you get it working?"

"Help me…to the Giza…" the other said, before gasping and falling back.

Third chevron engaged.

Swiftly, the taller one scooped up him into resolute arms with barely a grunt, glancing back at the Stargate where they'd come from. The building trembled as if vibrating along with the activated ring.

"The tablet…" the slighter one whispered, rummaging around his pockets. "It might have the…symbols…"

Without shifting the load, the taller one carried his companion over to the DHD, stepping up on the coverstone as the other pulled out a square tablet from within the folds of the cloak.

Fourth chevron…locked.

With a shaky hand gripping a round palm size stone, the weak form waved it over the flat surface. Symbols wavered, shifted around and then solidified. Shaking fingers fumbled around, touching the surface as the taller one mumbled about the Stargate behind them.

"T-there…" A hand extended out to the dial, seeking the symbols matching the ones on the tablet.

"To the left…that's right…last one…" the taller one said tersely, craning when the next chevron encoded.

Fifth chevron…locked.

No time.

The twin Stargate in front of them sparkled to life, and the tall one sighed in relief. Without setting his friend down, he whipped out an arm, revealing a black glove with a GDO device hastily strapped with masking tape. Punching in the code, he paused, waiting for it to get through.

Sixth chevron was now locked. Last one.

Green light.

Signal received.

"Hang on." The murmur was accompanied by a bowing of his head so the other could hear. When the last symbol engaged, he abruptly turned around, pulled out three grenades, rolling them one by one towards the other Stargate and leaped through the active one, still clutching his friend in his arms, not seeing the wall materializing back again.

Seconds later, six Jaffa soldiers, helmets shaped like hawks, stormed through the Stargate. They charged through, passing the wall without realizing it disappeared once more on contact, staff weapons waving around searching. They barked something to the central figure, a towering cloaked person, who hissed at the sight of the lit up Stargate before them. But before any of the guards could reach the DHD to read the symbols, the leader spied the grenades sitting on the ground below their feet.

"Jaffa, trek loy!" the leader commanded, but it was too late.

The grenades exploded, adding to the slight vibrations of the planet and destroyed parts of the ceiling. With a flash of light and a screech of sound, the room became dark, and the wall reappeared once more, reflecting the Stargate the two visitors just went through.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Jack steadied Daniel as soon as their feet landed on the ramp. Nodding he was okay, Daniel staggered away, leaning against the rail, hand on his head with a grimace.

"SG-1, what happened?" General Hammond's voice boomed over the PA system.

"The planet was suffering severe seismic activity, sir. We had to leave before we could get a chance to—" Carter froze when she heard the first chevron lock behind her.

"Incoming travelers!" a voice shouted through the microphone as the alarms went off. Red spotlights from the sirens spun wildly around the room. Soldiers began rushing in through the opening bulk doors, readying their M-16s towards the Stargate and any possible intruders who might be coming through.

"Shit!" Jack dragged the dazed archeologist to his feet again. Daniel turned his head, gawking at the Stargate, mouth slightly open, but O'Neill jerked him forward.

"Everyone off the ramp!" The team staggered away as the iris closed. But then abruptly, the shield opened again.

"What the hell?" The colonel whipped his head around as he and the others got behind the barricades. "Shut the iris! No one's due back for another day!"

"I'm getting a code through!" one of the technicians shouted back from behind the observation booth. "The computer's not letting me close the iris!"

"Whose code is it?" Sam shouted as she pulled out her gun. She watched the last chevron light up and tensed, aiming her weapon right at the event horizon as the Stargate flared once more.

"SG…" The technician gasped, leaning forward to his computer screen. "SG-1!" General Hammond started, staring at the technician in shock.

"What?" Jack exclaimed as the wormhole engaged, and the sparkling column of light shot vertically ahead. With a yank, he pulled his own weapon out of his hip holster and aimed for the event horizon, shouting over his shoulder to the booth behind him. "Shut the Stargate—"

Before he could finish, a cloaked figure stumbled through. Soldiers in the embarkation room readied their guns at the intruder. The visitor paused, steadying himself and the body he carried so carefully in his arms.

"Stay where you are!" Hammond's voice boomed out in the room, and the figure jumped.

"J-john?" The one the man carried stirred, a trembling white hand came out from the covers and tugged weakly at the other's cloak. The other didn't speak. He eyed his surroundings. Seeing the guards with their weapons pointed at them, he tightened his hold on the other. Sensing the tension, the other person's hand stilled, fingers tangled in his comrade's cloak.

"Identify yourself!" Hammond demanded, leaning forward to the glass.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sam saw O'Neill pushing Daniel down deeper behind the barricades before pulling out his gun. Teal'c crouched behind the colonel, his zat gun aimed towards the intruders. She tensed as she saw the person shrug, trying to remove the cloak without using his hands. The brown hood slipped off easily enough, revealing the black jumpsuit underneath it, and when Carter saw the face behind the hood, she gasped.

Jack, stunned, stood up and gaped.

It was him.

Rather, it was Jack O'Neill, standing at the top of the ramp dressed in the brown ratty cloak.

Suspicious brown eyes narrowed, scanning the room at the soldiers before they fell upon Sam. The double visibly straightened at attention when he saw her. "Commander? What the hell is going on here?" the Jack look-a-like hissed. "This doesn't look like Antarctica!"

"Antarctica?" Sam stammered, her gun wavering. "Commander?"

The man's face darkened, studying her up and down. "You're not Sammy." He shifted slightly as if trying to pull out a weapon but froze when he heard the answering click of a dozen others.

"Wha' 'appening?" The person he was carrying was audibly worried to a point he finally had to speak again. "J-john?"

"Shh…" John shushed his friend. He eyed the room with a glare. His eyes coldly observed the numbers with an easy military eye, probably calculating his odds, weighing his chances. The corner of his mouth twitched as the number of weapons trained on him grew, dozens of red dots from laser sights dancing on his chest. When his eyes landed on Jack, he visibly stiffened. "What the?" He took a step back.

"J-john?"

The man didn't answer, but his hands tightened around the body, the cloak folding into wrinkles under his grip. "Who are you?" he demanded his twin.

Jack eyed the intruder, getting the strangest sensation of looking at a mirror. It left him with a lightheaded feeling as he responded, compelled for some reason to keep his voice low. "Colonel Jack O'Neill of the SGC."

"Jack O'Neill…SGC?" John repeated. "What the hell is a SGC?"

Hammond, sensing no threat now, spoke into the microphone softly. "Stargate Command." He eyed Jack down below. "Colonel?"

O'Neill shook his head. "P3R-233, sir?" he hazarded a guess.

The general nodded, making the reference instantly. There were some missions one never forgets. "Stand down, men."

The soldiers reluctantly lowered their weapons. One or two of them glanced at the colonel, then back at to the man on the top of the ramp, confusion clear on their faces.

"What the hell is going on here?" John grated out, eyeing Jack warily as the colonel approached him slowly. With each thud Jack's boots made on the metal ramp, John seemed to tense even more.

"Who are you?" Jack asked softly, unable to tear away from his mirror image. His eyes drifted to the bundle John was carrying. The man saw where Jack's eyes were and growled, shifting sideways as if to shield his ward from prying eyes.

"Stay away from us!" John snarled. Jack stilled. "Where the hell we are—" John froze, his eyes glued to someone behind Jack.

Jack turned around and saw his twin's attention focus on Teal'c, still poised for attack, his staff weapon clear in the open. Jack whipped back and grabbed John's wrist in time before the gun fired from within the folds of his cloak sleeve, the bullet striking the observation booth window. The technicians, forgetting the glass was bulletproof, dove for cover while General Hammond stood there, his jaw clenched as he watched Jack twist the captured wrist, fighting for the weapon.

Another bullet fired, harmlessly up at the ceiling. At the sound, the guns went up again, this time aiming for the visitor's head. Red laser sight dots flew wildly for John's forehead.

"Hold your fire!" Hammond called out as Jack deftly disarm the man. John stumbled, falling to the ground, dropping his ward on the ramp. The person cried out when he landed, and Jack froze. The voice sounded so familiar.

"Dan!" John cried out in alarm. He shoved Jack away as he scrambled over. He gathered up his companion into his arms, shaking him frantically. "Dan?"

The hood slipped off from the struggle, revealing the drawn, pinched features of—

Daniel Jackson.

"Oh my God," Jack breathed. Everyone behind him was standing up now.

John shook the Daniel look-alike anxiously. "Danny?"

"C-can't breathe…" Dan gasped, eyes clenched shut, one hand fumbling around for John again. The fist turned white as the gasping grew to a horrible rasping sound. "J-john…" His head lolled back as his lungs heaved. His long locks of hair parted, revealed silver discs on the sides of his temples. His legs kicked feebly as lungs struggled to draw air.

John whipped up his head, his brown eyes now filled with panic. They locked with Jack's, and the colonel was struck with a sense of a dream or nightmare happening before him.

"Please…someone help him…someone help my brother!"

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General Hammond and the SG-1 team silently watched the numerous monitors in the room. One in particular drew their attention, the number ISO 2 subtitled at the lower right corner of the screen. Everyone stood there watching as Doctor Fraiser finished up in the holding cell. Every so often, she glanced over to the cameras, the frustration clear in her voice. The one called John was fighting her help every step of the way, constantly demanding to know about every needle, poke and touch she made.

"Look," Fraiser sounded tinny. Jack could hear the voice tinged with irritation though. She leaned forward towards the bunkbed, but John kept blocking her way to Dan. Finally, she leaned back, hands up in the air for a second, pleading. "I can't help Danie…I mean, Dan, if I can't take him to the infirmary. I removed some water from his lungs, but it doesn't mean he's not going to get pneumonia anyway."

"No," John said firmly, his grip around his brother's shoulders was tight. "You're not taking him away from my sight."

"N-not leaving…" Dan said breathlessly, agreeing. He leaned heavily on John, eyes shut as he continued. "I-I feel better now…'hank you…"

Fraiser sighed, eyeing the security cameras with an exasperated look as if saying "What now?" Janet turned back towards the two men. "Okay." She fumbled around her medical bag for something. "Then at least let me give him a shot of antibiotics before I—"

"No drugs!" John said sharply. Dan nodded vehemently.

Sighing, the doctor looked tempted to sedate them both and carted them off to the infirmary anyway, but one more look at the wary brown eyes of a man who wore her friend's face, and she couldn't do it. So instead, she patted to the oxygen tank by the bunk bed.

"If he still has trouble breathing, give him this to ease the strain on his lungs. Give him fluids, keep him hydrated." She got up, gathering her things. Directing a look back at the huddled figure in John's grasp, she softened. "If anything…any discomfort, let the guards know, and I'll come right away."

"Thank you…D-doctor…" Dan whispered, trying to sit up.

"Don't," John ordered, settling the young man down on the bed, carefully rearranging the blankets so he could sit comfortably. He turned back to Janet. "Thank you," he said coolly, not even offering his hand.

Fraiser pretended not to notice as she smiled gently. "Take care of him. I'll be back." She turned around, knocked on the cell door and was let out immediately by the guards.

As soon as the door shut, John turned his head towards the security cameras with a glare. Eyeing the lens, his reflection warped on its curved glass, he snarled at the machinery. "Enjoying the show?" he snapped then deliberately turned his back on it as he sat down on the side of the bed.

General Hammond sighed, crossing his arms. More and more, he didn't like this. He almost longed for the days of simple diplomatic ping-ponging of political figures deciding on warfare behind their cushy desks and the aggravation of needing to explain every action to some budget crunching senator. Anything was better, he supposed, to what these two guests might have in store for his ears.

_I thought I'd seen everything when I saw the Stargate light up over three years ago. I never thought I would find myself be wrong so many times._ Hammond watched as the man he sworn was Colonel Jack O'Neill effectively ignored the cameras as he tended to his friend on the bed. The man refused to talk to them, refused to even listen to what they had to say, only hanging anxiously over the bed until Doctor Fraiser came over. And the good doctor almost had her arm ripped off when she entered had not the other man whispered weakly to the O'Neill double to ease back. It was remarkable how the hostilities seemed to melt away with that soft-spoken request.

He glanced over to Jack who was watching the monitors with a frown. The colonel stood there with his arms crossed, brooding. Teal'c stood slightly behind O'Neill, watching the monitors with little emotion. But Hammond doubted the Jaffa was heartless. No doubt the warrior was thinking the same thing as he and O'Neill were.

Their two guests did not bring good news.

Hammond noted the same expression on Major Carter, who stood behind the two men but surprisingly wasn't fighting to get a better view. He wondered if Carter was thinking of her own encounter with another reality's Samantha Carter—correction—Samantha _O'Neill_. And while the peek into what might have become of his men was interesting, Hammond was sure Carter wasn't exactly itching to go through that experience again.

Then again, Doctor Jackson went through this twice already. _I'm sure he's probably quite prepared for this. _Hammond hoped the archeologist might be able to shed light on how these two visitors came through without any mirror since theirs was destroyed.

General Hammond turned to Daniel, who had been standing behind the rest of the group, never bothering to come closer to watch the screens with them. He saw Daniel was pale, whiter than the small bandage on his forehead, tight lipped, and it worried him enough to speak.

"Doctor Jackson? Are you all right?"

That caught Jack's attention. "Daniel?" Jack turned around in time to see Daniel rub a shaky hand across his face.

"Sorry," Daniel murmured as he took a step back. "Can't stop shaking the feeling this is bad news…" He laughed wearily. "Last time I was in an alternate reality, I saw a world being destroyed by the Goa'uld. And then, we had visitors coming from yet another alternate reality, and their world was in the process of being destroyed by the Goa'uld."

Sam took one look at his drawn face and went over. "Daniel." Carter took her friend by the elbow and guided him to a chair. "Take it easy—"

"I can't take it easy! It's happening again!" Daniel snapped. He jerked away from Sam. The major, surprised, drew up her hands immediately. His blue eyes suddenly focused, and he realized what he'd done. "I'm sorry. Didn't mean to—" He plopped abruptly to the chair, dropping his head to his hands, and sighed heavily.

Jack knelt by Daniel, one hand shaking Jackson's knee to get his attention. Daniel looked up with red rimmed eyes.

"Deep breaths, Daniel. We're not in some weird reality here. This is our reality. And we beat the snakeheads before that could happen. Remember?"

"I remember," Daniel said faintly, a quick smile flitted across his face.

"It happened before, and we beat them," O'Neill said firmly. "And I intend to make sure history doesn't repeat itself."

"They are...or were involved somehow in a Stargate project," Carter jumped in. "They had a GDO, well, something like a GDO although a bit low tech compared to ours." She didn't mention the fact that the device was barely functioning, patched together from dozens of repair jobs with probably very crude tools. She had only a chance to take a brief look and found it had no battery life left, the wires and the antennae inside were on its last legs. Their visitors were truly fortunate their GDO still worked for them, otherwise the iris... Carter swallowed. She didn't finish the morbid thought.

"What about the tablet they had with them?" Daniel asked hesitantly, eyes wandering back to the monitors. His brow furrowed, deep in thought. "They look like the ones that were booby trapped with the—"

"They're not," Jack quickly cut in. "Just normal everyday alien tablets. That's all."

"Indeed. The Goa'uld use them quite often to carry knowledge of the symbols in long terms of travel," Teal'c added.

"Lab's got them now to double check," Sam said, looking sympathetically at the top of Daniel's bowed head. The archeologist nodded as if he wasn't concerned about that.

"Should we be testing them for the Goa'uld larva?" Daniel asked wincing, remembering how he was subjected to a MRI machine against his will in the alternate reality he'd accidentally stumbled upon. He dropped his hands in his lap and rubbed them up and down his thighs, feeling cold.

"I did not sense the presence of a Goa'uld, O'Neill," Teal'c finally spoke up. "Not in…the man called John nor in his…brother."

"Brothers," Daniel murmured. "Imagine that." He gave a strange laugh, looking up at Jack and Sam with a sad smile. "Infinite possibilities?"

Carter nodded, casting another look back at the monitors. She saw John was helping Dan with a glass of water. "I would say so, Daniel," she agreed in a soft voice.

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"Take it easy," John murmured as he guided the glass to Dan's lips after taking a drink first to test it. "Slow sips." The younger man's hand shook as he tried to hold on to the glass as he drank. John held the glass steady for him, tilting it forward so he could drink, one hand pressed firmly behind his head for support. After a sip, Dan shook his head. He squeezed John's hand weakly, pushing the glass away from him with a tired sigh.

John lowered the container, hovering closer to his brother as he asked worriedly, "Are you sure?"

"Tired." The ill man kept his eyes closed. He burrowed himself deeper into the pillows behind him, smiling slightly as he felt John draw up the covers closer to him, tucking them in before brushing back a strand of hair from his forehead.

"What are we going to do now?" Dan asked faintly. "What the hell is this place?"

John looked around the room they'd been escorted to with a frown. "I don't know, but they seem a bit more advanced than we are." He looked at the cameras, then at the electronic locks on the cell doors. "Man, Commander would have a fit if she saw all this. We got crap glued together with spit compared to it."

"What a l-lovely image," Dan drawled softly before he coughed. He could feel the bed give underneath him as John leaned forward. He waved his hands weakly. "I'm okay. Just a dry throat."

"It's not—"

"No," Dan said firmly. "It's not." He could hear John sigh in relief.

"Then there's still time." Dan heard the hopeful lilt in the man's voice. "You don't need to get another dose yet."

"Sure," the young man lied. "Still time."

John sighed, running a hand through his hair, glaring down at his jumpsuit, then at Dan's ratty one he had swiped, wishing now he'd taken them up on their offer for some clean clothes. He mulled over what he'd seen. It was a shock to see his face on someone else. Smoothing one hand over his top, he recalled the olive green fatigues, the black T-shirt and frowned. Whoever those people were, wherever they were, it was not like the base he'd been expecting to arrive in.

Dan reached out, touching his elbow to catch his attention. "Did…did that man really look like you?"

John nodded then paused. A guilty look came over his face, and he cleared his throat. "Yeah…sort of."

"Sort of?"

"He has more gray," the other quipped, and Dan snickered weakly, amused.

"I see. So a clone is out then…"

"Probably."

"They took the tablet," Dan suddenly whispered, his hands reaching higher to snag John's sleeve by the elbow.

"Yeah. The reader, too." John eyed his brother. "Think they know how it works?"

"M-may'e," Dan sighed. "That thing just activates with the s-stone, although I don't know how it still works, John. None of it. Or what it contains. I wish we had time to ask Jo—"

"Look, it got us the symbols for that planet it was orbiting on. Otherwise, we would have never been able to jump to the other place, and it got us the coordinates to get home…well…maybe not the last part…but got us out of that ship." John patted his friend on the knee, silently warning him to not say anything more. "I ain't complaining."

"But the others—"

"We'll get back to them." The older brother surveyed the room with narrowed eyes.

"We have to. If what I heard is true, it'll be our best chance. We need to find the other—"

"We will. Okay? We will."

Dan sighed again, sinking deeper into the covers. The soft padding underneath him felt odd, a familiar sensation long missed, to a point that he couldn't savor it, rather, realize how odd it felt after so long. He stroked the blanket with a finger, wishing he didn't feel so chilled. He stiffened when he heard the door beep. "Someone's coming."

John shuffled over a bit closer to him. He coldly watched his twin enter the room with the blonde woman who he'd originally thought was—

"Hello," Dan called out faintly.

"Shh…" John squeezed the thin leg under the blankets, signaling him to keep quiet.

"Hi," Sam returned hesitantly. She glanced over to the man resting on the bed, partly concealed by John O'Neill's frame. The defensive pose made her feel odd, like she was standing on the wrong side of the room. She gave what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "We aren't your enemy."

John snorted. "That's original!" he laughed bitterly. "I don't know how you got this set up, but you're not fooling us. We're not telling you anything."

"We're not trying to fool anyone," Jack said evenly, standing back near the door. He studied the angry, twisted disbelieving smirk on his twin's face. He briefly wondered if he had once looked like this to others. "We have this theory—"

"Oh, so you're not a colonel, you're a scientist now?" John snapped back.

Jack's temper flared, making him stand straighter.

John stood up too, challenging him. "Look—"

"Jack."

The colonel and John both turned around to the open doorway, at the shadow shyly standing back.

"Maybe I should come in after all."

Jack shook his head, aborting the idea immediately.

"It'll be fine."

John's eyes narrowed at the soft tone, wondering where he'd heard it before. He turned his attention towards the darkened door, at the person coming in.

Stepping into the bright room, the shadow became flesh, sandy short hair, glasses that glinted under the overhead lights, and pale skin that—

"Oh my God," John blurted out hoarsely as he stared at the man who could have been his brother. Daniel stood there, looking pale but also healthy, standing with his hands in his pockets, reminiscent of the time he and Dan first met with eyes that stared right at him.

"John?"

"Uh…Dan?" John could feel Dan struggling to sit up higher. "I think..." He swallowed, trying to describe the impossible. "I think I've just met your evil twin brother."

Daniel looked at the two with a slightly awed expression on his face. "Um…hi!" John was just staring at Daniel in shock. He swallowed nervously, wondering why it felt like he was on some new planet, greeting the natives, and shifted from foot to foot. Pushing his eyeglasses back up with his index finger, he was startled to see John's face darken. Daniel cleared his throat.

"Uh…My name's Daniel Jackson."

"Jackson," Dan murmured. "Now there's a name I haven't 'eard in quite a while."

Daniel blinked before continuing. "Oh. Well…I don't know how to say this to you, but…uh…you see…" He took a deep breath and said the rest in one breath. "In theory of the universe, there are infinite amount of possibilities and each possibility has their own...oh...that explanation never works anyway...I think you've accidentally stepped through an alternate reality here through a quantum mirror and—"

"I believe you," John interrupted.

"What?" Jack blurted out before he could stop himself. "That's it? You believe us? Just like that?"

John glared at Jack. "Do you mind keeping your voice down?" He glanced back at Dan who was leaning against his shoulder tiredly.

Jack clamped his mouth shut, not really sure how to respond to someone who basically told himself to be quiet. Sam tried not to smile. The situation, although strange, was oddly funny.

"I believe you," John continued, his eyes unexplainably sad. "Because even if they could somehow make a copy of me, they wouldn't be able to make one, or want to of…him." He paused before finally sticking out his hand, his posture visibly straightening out of habit, his voice steady and firm. "Captain Jonathan O'Neill, former United States Air Force, Special Forces. This is my brother, Doctor Daniel O'Neill."

"Daniel O'Neill?" Daniel whispered as he stepped closer to John. The captain was looking at Daniel with a bit of…jealousy? "Um...You mean…?"

"Adopted," Dan whispered, tilting his head lower as he struggled to stay awake. "I found him in a park when I was six." A small smile appeared on his lips. He didn't see Daniel take a step back from his words.

"You found me?" John retorted, getting back to what appeared to be an old argument of theirs. "I found you!"

"Only after you tried to run away to Canada, you dumb jerk!" Dan shot back. His brother sputtered.

Sam raised an eyebrow towards Jack, who returned the gesture with one of his own. "Now there's something you don't hear from our Daniel everyday!"

Daniel flushed.

"I'll be damned," John breathed. He sat down on the bed, wearing a look of shock on his face. "An alternate reality? Like the Twilight Zone kind of thing?"

Daniel nodded. "Some similarities and some differ—" He paused when he noticed his twin had his eyes still closed shut, now being supported completely by John's arm slipped around his shoulder during the conversation. "Look…Maybe we should finish this later. He…I-I mean…Dan looks kind of tired."

Jack frowned, noting the raspy breathing from his friend's double. "You're right, Daniel. We can come back later and—"

"No," Dan said faintly. "Let's continue. I want to hear this now."

"Should we lower the lights for you then?" Sam saw how pale the man was, trembling every so often. "Are they too bright for you?"

John gave a strange laugh, but it sounded more like a sob.

Dan smiled softly. "Oh. I guess the doctor didn't tell you." He shook his head against John's shoulder. "The lights don't bother me." The ailing man lifted his head up a bit; the overhead lights glinted off the strange flat silver circles imbedded on his temples. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

"Oh my God," Daniel mumbled. He stumbled back until Jack's hand on his shoulder steadied him.

Dan O'Neill was blind.


	3. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

Dan closed his pale, sightless eyes again. "See? It doesn't matter." He leaned his head back into the hollow of John's shoulder and coughed. He felt the grip on his arm tighten. "I'm okay," he reassured his brother and felt another squeeze in response.

"Holy s-how?" Jack breathed as he felt Daniel beside him dropped down to a seat, stunned. He couldn't get over the pale blue pupils, almost colorless, staring at nothing.

"They did this!" John spat out, his eyes flashing. "Goa'uld bastards did this to him!" He nodded viciously towards the shiny discs on Dan's temples.

"Goa'ulds?" Daniel stuttered, finally finding his voice again, his eyes glued to the silver circles. They looked oddly familiar to him. "You mean Apophis?"

John looked puzzled. "A-who?"

"Apophis," Dan spoke up. "Rival Egyptian god of Ra—"

John stared at his brother. "Rival of Ra? So maybe he's here to stop Ra and—"

"Wait a minute!" Jack took a step closer and was taken aback when he saw himself, actually, John stiffening. "You mean Ra is—"

"Came in large ships in '96," John growled. "We never had a chance. Took the planet by storm. We barely had an opportunity to move the le—" He stopped, refusing to say anything more.

"Ra's dead," Daniel whispered, swallowing. John whirled back to him, stunned. The archeologist feebly waved his hands. "I mean in our reality. Apophis is the enemy here."

"Lucky you," John said bitterly. "Ra is sticking around here…I mean…our world, sucking us dry." He paused, studying the group in the room, noting someone was missing. "Is that where your Jaffa came from? From this Apophis?" John ground out.

"Was," Jack said quietly. "He turned against him and joined up with us in the fight against the Goa'uld."

John didn't look at all impressed.

"Wait. Ra…" Daniel swallowed. "Ra's still alive in your reality?"

John didn't reply so Dan spoke up instead. "He came…supposedly to retaliate for a rebellion during the times of ancient—"

"Egypt, I know." Daniel nodded.

Dan chuckled sadly. "Talk about your grudges, huh?"

"But why did they do this…" Sam stopped, finding herself about to say Daniel's name. Jack noticed and shot her a scowl. The major corrected herself quickly before it became noticeable. "To your brother?"

"I could read their language. Ra had all the scholars eliminated as a sign of aggression," Dan whispered. "I learned too quickly how to understand their words. I'm a bit of a linguist and an archeologist in my world—"

"And an Egyptologist," John added, a hint of pride in his voice. Jack looked at his double funny.

"Same here," Daniel said quietly, staring at his counterpart.

"I guess there are some things similar between our worlds," Dan replied. He paused. "May I?"

Daniel blinked.

"He wants to see you," John explained. "With his hands."

"Oh." Daniel flushed. Of course. "Sorry." He came closer and crouched down on his knees, leaning his face closer to Dan's pale, thin hands. He watched fascinated as Dan cautiously touched his face. Dan drew back his hands a bit, a soft intake of breath, sounding amazed before continuing on. Daniel felt the hands lightly touch his nose, chin, and jaw, the tips of the fingers feeling rough with perhaps calluses. He felt odd, as if he was touching his own face, while looking into a distorted mirror.

"A bit chubby," Dan commented lightly.

John snorted. "Everyone's chubby compared to you, Mutt."

Dan sighed. "Pay no mind to my brother. He can be a little rude at times—ow!" John chuckled as he tapped his brother on the head. It was obvious though that the gesture was light, barely even ruffling his hair.

Sam smiled at the sight. "Sounds like someone we know." She glanced over to Jack who grunted.

Laughing softly, Dan murmured. "Some things are similar." He froze when he felt the thin frames of Daniel's glasses. His index finger brush against the wire curving behind the ears then stopped. He pulled his hands away. "And some are not." Dan sighed again, deeper, more tiredly this time.

"Dan?"

"I guess I am tired, John." Dan's lower lip trembled, and the captain turned slightly to block the others from seeing.

Jack saw it though but said nothing. "We'll leave you to rest then. Do you want anything to eat?"

The captain tilted his head for a moment. "You don't just serve rations here, do you?"

Jack grimaced. "No, we have a kitchen. Only on missions."

A strange look flitted across John's face. "We would appreciate something to eat—"

"Speak…for yourself," Dan broke in.

"I could use something to eat." John ignored Dan as he continued. "But if you could get something soft for Dan instead?" He shook away the insistent hand tugging on his sleeve, giving it a pat before setting the hand down on Dan's lap. "Maybe oatmeal? With some sugar?"

"J-john," Dan protested weakly, barely audible enough for everyone else to hear.

"Hush." John saw their questioning looks. His eyes looked sad as he cast them on Dan, his hand on top of his brother's head as he continued. "H-he can't eat solid foods very well…not anymore." John swallowed. His hands tightened around the head, locks of light hair curling within his fingers before he remembered and let go. He moved his hand instead protectively around Dan's shoulders. "Oatmeal's probably the only thing he can stomach at this point. I need the sugar to add some calories in it."

Jack studied the frail man on the bed. "I'll make sure they know that, Captain."

"Thank you," John said quietly. "Colonel."

The title sounded bizarre coming out of John O'Neill's voice, and for a moment, Jack stared at him, catching the desolate weariness lingering in twin brown eyes. The room seemed to lighten as he broke eye contact. Jack nodded and motioned for the others to leave. As he stepped through the doorway, he could hear Dan speak up again in a weak voice.

"John…I told you…not hungry."

"Come on, Danny." John's voice was soft and pleading. "At least try. Okay? You can't stop now. At least a little bit. For me?"

Dan's voice broke in a soft sob. It sounded muffled as he pressed his face against John's arm. He could be heard gulping as he finally whispered, "I'll try…I'll try."

The door closed behind him, shutting out what John was going to say next.

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_"Here's to the future Doctor Daniel Jackson O'Neill, a.k.a. Mutt and—hey!" John glared at his brother as he placed a hand on the back of his head. He rubbed the sore spot ruefully. "What the hell did you hit me with?"_

_"My Masters degree," Dan quipped, twirling the thin plastic roll protecting the scroll between his fingers as he grabbed for a beer on the table. "Had to make you take a retraction there, bro. Nowhere in my diploma does it say Mutt."_

_"It should," John muttered, glaring at the young man taking a sip of the beer. _

_"I see they added another bar over there." Dan pointed to the decorations on John's uniform._

_Shaking his head, Dan laughed. "I know it's been eight years, but I still can't believe you actually joined the army!" Dan waved his beer can up and down at the uniform with a crooked grin. "Whatever happened to going against the establishment?"_

_"Air Force." The older man shook his finger at him. "I'm in the Air Force."_

_Dan grinned wider. "I know. You get riled up every time I make that mistake."_

_"I do not."_

_"Do too." Dan laughed again and tilted the beer can back and took a long guzzle. _

_His brother glared at the beverage. "You shouldn't be drinking that."_

_"Why not?" Dan said indignantly. _

_"I'm going to have to explain to our mom where you got that shit!"_

_"Oh please, it's not like I never had a beer before!"_

_John glared at his brother. "I'm not even going to ask."_

_Dan smugly took another sip._

_"You're not even twenty one!"_

_"I will be in less than two months." He pointedly ignored his adopted brother and took a long gulp. "I'm celebrating so…so…piss off!" _

_"Oh," John drawled. "Them're fighting words."_

_"Oh please." Dan rolled his eyes. He pretended to shiver, grinned at John again and took another long gulp of the beer. "Look, John. I'm so scared. I-John!" Beer sprayed when John hoisted him up over his shoulders. "Put me down!"_

_"Sounds like you need some cooling off!"_

_"Put me down!" Dan bellowed as he tried to twist away from the grip. "Mom! John's being a jerk again!"_

_"That's nice," their mother murmured from the kitchen, her eyes on the oven as she busied herself talking to some of the other parents attending the celebration party for his class._

_"John!"_

_"Why don't you ever call me Jack?" the man complained as he trotted easily down the backyard steps and onto the deck. _

_"I'll be calling you a whole lot of other names if you don't put me down!" Dan bellowed._

_"Dan, Dan, Dan. When will you ever learn?" John drawled as he stood over the pool._

_"Put. Me. Down!"_

_"Sure," John chuckled evilly. _

_Dan blanched. "No…wait…I didn't me—" He yelped when John threw him, graduation gown, tassels and all into the chlorine tinted water._

_John doubled over laughing. "See any artifacts down there, Danny?" John cupped his mouth and shouted down to the pool as Dan resurfaced, sputtering. He dropped to his knees, wiping tears from his eyes. "Say hi to King Tut for me!"_

_Dan growled and splashed his brother before grinning himself._

"Danny?"

Opening his eyes, Dan saw his brother sitting on the bed, shaking his arm to wake him. Then he felt the spark of the Goa'uld device, and the world went dark again.

"S-still here?" Dan croaked out.

John sounded surprised. "Where else would I be?"

_Nowhere. You came when Lily took me on my way home from school. You stayed even when you wanted to join the military the minute you were eighteen, and here you are again._

"Dan?" John's hand touched him on his knee. "They brought us some grub."

Thinking about food nauseated him. Dan shook his head.

"Come on!" John's voice was tinged with panic. "Don't do this. You promised me you would swallow every bite!"

Dan tilted his head towards his brother. He could hear the guilt barely hiding in the back of John's tone. He remembered a time when John told him he would be there. Always.

But John thought he did. Thought he left him with—

Dan's chest tightened with that thought, and he abruptly shoved it down into the back of his mind where it belonged. He had bigger priorities to be concerned with.

"Danny?" John whispered.

Nodding, Dan smiled wanly, hoping it didn't look forced. "S-sure."

Smiling in relief, John took the large bowl of oatmeal in his hands. "Smells a lot better than what we have." He eyed his brother thoughtfully and then heaped on top of it three spoonfuls of sugar from a bowl set aside on the tray.

"That's too much!" Dan protested as he heard the spoon clink against the bowl three times.

"Not enough," John said sadly as he added one last spoonful. "Damn it. It's not enough!" He stirred the sugar viciously into the oatmeal as if it was responsible for everything. "It's not enough!"

"Hey."

Dan's quiet voice broke through John's despair like no one else could. It had a calming effect on John's soul, and the man wondered if his brother was even aware of it. He wondered if Dan even remembered he was all he had left of their family. Everything else was gone. All gone.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and forced himself to grin. "Gotcha."

"J-jerk," Dan whispered. He felt the congealed muck with his fingers and grimaced. He wiped his fingers on a napkin and sighed. "Why can't oatmeal ever look…pretty?"

"I could have that Major Carter do a song and dance for you before each spoonful," John quipped, grinning as Dan chuckled.

"God, no. I'll never be able to look at Sammy the same way again!" Dan moaned. He paused and dropped his voice. "Where are they?"

"Huh?" John's spoon froze mid-air.

"The doppelgangers."

"Our evil twins?" John quipped.

Dan sighed. "Yes, yes."

"Well…I, that is, Colonel O'Neill came in with the food and talked a bit about their reality." John shook his head. "That sounds so weird just saying it!"

"I can imagine how weird it must be seeing it," the younger man remarked, pausing when he heard his brother suck in his breath sharply. He immediately regretted his words.

"Just like looking in the mirror, Mutt."

_For some_, Dan thought as he remembered feeling no discs on his mirror image, just a pair of glasses he hadn't worn for over three years. He wondered where they were now. Dan remembered them taking the eyewear away, laughing at him as they showed them to him before—The young man slammed a figurative door on the memory.

"You know, that Doctor Jackson mentioned mirrors...something about a quantum mirror," John mused. He frowned. "What do you suppose that means?"

"I don't know." Dan reached up and massaged the back of his aching neck. "I'm still trying to figure out how we got here instead of where we were supposed to go." Dan paused. "You mentioned cameras before." He sat up straighter, his voice lowered to barely a whisper. "Are they still on?"

"Yeah," John spat out.

"So they can see us?" He pressed back against the bed, hoping John's frame would block their view of him. He knew he had nothing to fear from their twins, but he couldn't get that nagging feeling of being watched, being sneered at as the blind puppet out of his heart. He wormed a hand out from under his covers again, fumbling until he found John's hand and pulled at it worriedly. "Can they hear us?"

"Don't see any mikes." John shrugged. He gave Dan's hand a pat, knowing what he was thinking. "Probably not." He paused. "You're trying to distract me, Dan. Eat."

Dan grimaced, wanting to protest, but the spoon pressed against his clamped mouth insistently. Sighing, Dan obediently opened parted his lips and swallowed the oatmeal before he could taste it. Not that he could anyway. Everything, including water, tasted metallic and full of bile due to the interfering currents of the Goa'uld device on his head.

"You okay?" John leaned forward anxiously as Dan suddenly doubled over coughing, hand over his mouth as the food threatened to make a reappearance. The man grabbed his younger brother by the shoulders, supporting the hunched man as he coughed.

"Yeah. Sorry." Dan felt John pull him closer, and he sighed, dropping his head back against the familiar feel of John's chest. The man didn't say anything as he spooned up some more oatmeal. Dan made a sound of protest and tried to turn his head away.

"Dan." John sounded strained.

Too tired to protest, too weary to worry about the nausea still churning in his midsection like the ocean did in a storm, Dan just systematically opened his mouth again and again until the last drop of oatmeal was finished. He then felt John settling him back on the bed, pulling the blankets up to his chin. Dan didn't remember if he said thank you or not as he drifted off to sleep, the heavy feeling of the food sitting uncomfortably in his stomach.

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_"I found him in a park when I was six."_

Inside the drab walls of the observation room, Daniel stared at the monitor unblinkingly, Dan O'Neill's brief conversation spinning in his head. Six. That must be when the reality he knew branched off to the reality Dan knew.

_There is always a choice made that springs up another version of what we know as reality_, Daniel thought, chin resting on top of his reversed chair. _But I didn't think a simple choice like that would have led to something so different. No. Couldn't be. Couldn't be just that. Couldn't be because of her. Surely there was more to it than that._ Daniel pushed the thoughts and Dan's voice away as he tried to think of something else.

_"Daniel, this is Lily Spencer." Ms. Brenner smiled at him before she let a pretty young woman into the office. "Daniel, won't you say hello to the nice lady? She's going to be your mother for the-"_

_"She's not my mom!" Daniel sniffed, pulling away from the hand Ms. Brenner placed on his knee. He hugged his pack tighter to him. _

_"I'm sorry," Ms. Brenner was saying to this Lily. "His parents passed away a few weeks ago. We've tried locating his relatives, but for the time being thought it best he was placed in foster care while we wait. He really is a good boy."_

_"I'm sure he is," Lily purred. She walked over, her heels going click, click, click, and she stooped down to his level. She stroked his hair with her hand and smiled at him. "He's a perfect little golden boy. Poor baby. I'll be your momma now."_

_Daniel peered cautiously up at her, over the top of his bag. Her smile was large, very white, but for some reason, it reminded him of the cats he saw running around the back of the orphanage. They would sit there, very still, fangs peeking out of their furry mouths, as they lay like sphinx statues in the sun. Perfectly harmless until they abruptly shot out into the corner and snagged the mouse they'd been watching for so long. He always heard the mouse squeak once before the little snap as the cat's jaw clamped down on its tiny body._

_Daniel hugged his bag tighter._

It wasn't working. Daniel rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. They felt dry, barely staying open long enough to catch the concerned glance Jack gave him from his seat. Daniel pretended not to see the look, forcing himself to focus on the screens blinking in front of him. He needed to concentrate. He couldn't be sitting here dwelling on the history of a six-year-old.

But all he could think of was how at ease John was in introducing him as Dan O'Neill. He stared at Jack's counterpart helping Dan with the meal. It was like he couldn't turn away from the screen, yet inside, he felt dirty for watching.

"This isn't right, Jack. I feel like we're intruding on something."

Jack eyed the monitor from his chair a few feet away. When he was in the room, Jack had a better look at his counterpart and noticed minute differences. John…Captain John O'Neill was a bit stockier than Jack, tanned all over as if he spent most of his life outdoors but there was a darkness in the way the man stood, talked, and looked. His words were clipped, short as if he didn't have time to waste on niceties.

But whereas he was able to differentiate the subtle things between him and John O'Neill, Jack couldn't see any between Daniel and Dan O'Neill.

It wasn't because he couldn't find any. He just couldn't bring himself to look for some reason. When they first went in the room, Jack barely got a glimpse of Dan O'Neill, his brother blocking their view of him at every turn. He only saw a man, too thin for his height, hair as long as Daniel once had the first year he returned from Abydos, fingers usually actively waving in the air, were still over his lap. Glancing at the blank face, the shaking hands and the waxy pallor gave Jack a churning sensation in the pit of his stomach.

When Jack came by again, using the tray of food as an excuse, he told John about who he was and Daniel's role in this project. John asked no questions, made no move towards him, or reacted to anything even when Jack mentioned his and Daniel's role in Ra's death. When Jack told the captain about sending the bomb up to the ship, John scowled, saying only in a flat voice that they lost all nuclear technology. He'd said nothing more on the subject.

Remembering how John had looked at him, his eyes dark with guilt for some reason, Jack had a sneaky suspicion it was because of his adopted brother Dani—no Dan O'Neill.

"We have to be sure that they're who they say they are," O'Neill murmured, gaze glued to the monitor, his arms crossed.

"How could any of that be faked?" Daniel's voice rose a bit as he waved towards the screen. "My God, Jack. How…what could have happened? If Ra came back to Earth four years ago…" Jackson looked sick.

Jack felt nauseated, too, but not for the fact that Ra attacked their world after thousands of years of freedom. He felt a strange fluttering feeling in his stomach again, watching Daniel's twin with that sad smile and those colorless eyes. He felt a chill go down his spine when he heard himse—no, Captain John O'Neill, pleading Dan to eat.

"S-Sam." Daniel swallowed, eyes still riveted to the monitors. "Sam thinks the tablet we found on them is similar to the ones we have here."

"What does it say?" Jack asked, tearing his eyes away.

"Nothing. Well, not nothing. We haven't had a chance to go through the whole thing yet. All it's got so far was a bunch of symbols listed on it. Some were familiar like Chulak and Abydos, others were not." Daniel looked at him.

"Jack, it had P9H-521 on it, too."

"The techs did say they tracked the signal originated from P9H-521."

"So there must be another mirror somewhere, then. They definitely didn't come through ours."

"We had ours destroyed after the last time this happened," Jack reminded his friend. "General Hammond had it decommissioned, remember?"

"But this means there's another one out there. There may be many more out there."

O'Neill sighed as he thought about it. He didn't like the idea. "I know."

Daniel closed his eyes briefly as it all sank in. "God, Jack. So many realities out there, and they all end the same—"

"Not all the same!" Jack interrupted harshly.

"No…" The young man shot Jack a grateful look. "Not all of them." He paused, blinking at his friend. "Are we going back with them?"

"General Hammond is considering it." Jack rubbed his eyes wearily. "We have to know more about how they got here before we starting jumping into the whirlpool."

"The structure doesn't look like it can wait for us to debate about it, Jack," the archeologist reminded him.

"Well, they can't stay here either." Jack grimaced. "Last time when Carter and her…twin was here, the window was forty eight hours before the en—cascading...whatever it was called begins, right?"

Daniel nodded.

"So we got a little over forty left to figure this out." The colonel rested his chin on the back of his seat.

The two men fell into a terse silence as they both watched the captain study his surroundings, eyes freezing on the camera. Jack wasn't too sure, but he could have sworn the man shuffled a bit to block them from seeing his brother. Bile rose up his throat. What could have happened to that reality's version of Daniel Jackson? John O'Neill said they came almost four years ago? So what were they doing the whole time to survive? Jack resisted turning around to make sure their version was alive and well next to him.

"I think he's dying…" Daniel whispered reluctantly.

Jack whipped his head towards Daniel. He had to remind himself that Daniel _O'Neill _was dying. Not Daniel Jackson. "You don't know that." His words came out sharper than he'd intended.

"Look at m-him." Daniel said tightly. Swallowing, Daniel waved towards the monitor, but Jack refused to look again. "Ra eliminated all reading and writing on Abydos when he moved the people after the rebellion. Maybe when he returned to their world, he tried to do the same."

Jack silently agreed. Ra, in their own experience, wasn't too keen on sharing his language and knowledge. Hell, he practically outlawed reading and writing on Abydos, forcing them into ignorant enslavement. Just not allowing it on Earth wouldn't have worked in this day and age so Ra went drastic, taking victims like Dan whose only crime was being too smart for his own good.

Unexpectedly, a surge of anger rushed through Jack. And where was John when this happened? If they were brothers—close ones from the looks of things—John should have been able to stop this from happening. Jack knew if it were him, he would have done everything humanly possible to prevent this.

_Then again..._

_No matter how hard you try to be a better man, a friend, a team leader, or father, you can't protect them all_, a little voice inside him reasoned. _Why do you think he looked so damn guilty?_

Jack gnawed his lower lip. Then, a thought occurred to him.

"Mind probes," he said abruptly.

"What?"

Jack waved towards the monitor, wishing they could turn them off. "When we were captured by Ha—" He paused when he saw Daniel tense and decided not to finish the name. "When we woke up and they told us it was the future? We had those things on the side of our heads to suck out information."

"I remember," Daniel answered tightly.

"Yeah." The colonel felt awkward, wishing he hadn't opened his damn mouth. Daniel never spoke of Hathor and Jack didn't care to either. He still woke up feeling very cold at times, the chill of a cryogenic tube freezing him, the sharp bite of a Goa'uld larva slithering behind his neck, the agonizing pain of it entering—

"You think they're the same things, Jack?" Daniel's serious voice broke through Jack's thoughts.

The colonel, glad for the interruption, shrugged. "Maybe. They look a little thinner, a little different, but they could be the same types. If so, we might be able to take them out. Carter thought the same thing and went with Teal'c to get the ones we have to compare." Jack scowled. "If he lets us near enough to compare them, that is."

_"You know, that Doctor Jackson mentioned mirrors...something about a quantum mirror." _

Daniel glanced over to Jack with a surprised look.

_"What do you suppose that means?"_

_"I don't know." _Dan answered back to his brother with a weary voice._ "I'm still trying to figure out how we got here instead of where we were supposed to go." _

The colonel frowned at the monitors. "Wait a minute...if they didn't go through some mirror, then how—" He looked back at Daniel who shrugged.

_"You mentioned cameras before. Are they still on?"_ O'Neill heard Dan ask his brother, his voice barely audible enough for the cameras' mikes to pick up.

_"Yeah."_ John didn't sound too happy.

Jack scowled. "Obviously wherever they came from, they don't have the same technology as we do."

"They never had a SGC," Daniel surmised. "No reason to develop technologies like we have. A parallel society, eliminate the need or the threat and developing radically different—"

"If you say that this is all fascinating," O'Neill warned.

Daniel looked shocked. "God, no! I just…" His eyes drifted back to the pair. "Maybe we should have Janet look at them again."

"They wouldn't let her before," the older man pointed out.

"But they know we're not the enemy now. And they know we know they're not the enemy either."

O'Neill didn't reply, the sick feeling settling in his stomach again as he watched John ease Dan back down, the young man too weak to do it himself. Jack watched the man who looked too much like himself, the face haunted and as familiar to Jack as staring at his own photo. Pulling the blankets closer to the frail body, John tucked the sides in as if to shield Dan. And Jack knew that they were not…could not…be their enemy.

"I'll let Doc know," Jack muttered, picking up the phone.


	4. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

_General Hammond nodded towards his guests seated opposite Sam and the others. "First of all, we'd like to say we know what you've been through." Hammond sat down at the front of the briefing table. He gestured at Daniel, who was picking listlessly at his tablet. "Doctor Jackson experienced a similar alternate reality some time ago on a mission to P3X-233."_

_Samantha O'Neill nodded, glancing at Sam before she turned back to the general. "Well that's where we found our quantum mirror as well."_

_So many similarities. Carter couldn't stop herself from staring at herself...her double, that is. The long hair was a throw off that was for sure. Sam recalled contemplating letting her own hair grow, but long hair wasn't exactly efficient in the military. One could hardly dodge bullets with hair in your face. She frowned, remembering the barely suppressed surprise on her double's face when she said she couldn't imagine herself ever going military. Sam fingered her short hair thoughtfully._

_"Fortunately for us, Doctor Jackson was able to return with intelligence that enabled SG-1 to stop the Goa'uld attack here on Earth."_

_Sam turned her head, studying Daniel and caught the wince on her friend's face, a memory clearly in his mind. Daniel never indulged any details about his experience there, only spoke of what happened in clipped, brusque sentences, different from his usual rambling on any subject he found fascinating. Now, he was just as quiet._

_"Nice," Sam heard her twin saying, and she returned her attention back to Sam O'Neill. "It goes a long way to explain why yours was one of only a handful of alternate realities that looked like it hadn't been overrun by the Goa'uld."_

_Only a handful? Sam pushed that depressing count aside. She could see Daniel swallowing out of the corner of her eye as she spoke. "Actually, it's probably the very differences that set our universe apart from yours that have contributed to our survival." She didn't want to think it was sheer, dumb luck. She motioned towards Daniel. "Daniel's participation in the Stargate program...Teal'c's change of heart, the fact that I joined the military—"_

_Her counterpart laughed bitterly. "You think your being in the Air Force could make that big of a difference?"_

_Taken aback, Sam took a second to respond. "Uh...no...I just said it made a contribution—"_

_Doctor Sam O'Neill scowled at her with resentment. "And therefore I didn't?"_

_Slack jawed, Sam found herself staring at her double, the one who stayed purely only a scientist, angry at Sam for accusing her of failing. Unable to respond, Sam could only close her mouth at Hammond's well-timed cough. Her twin seemed more than happy to comply and went on about the meeting, but Sam found herself staring at the person she could have become._

Pacing outside the isolation room where John and Dan O'Neill were, Sam waited for Janet to finish her examination. Spending hours talking to a vague colonel over at Area 51 about their destroyed quantum mirror, studying the faxes that showed the mirror's destruction recorded in the logs, Sam was more than glad to take a break and accompany Fraiser when O'Neill called for her. But as she stood outside, Carter wondered instead if she should join the colonel and Daniel in the next room where the monitors were.

She couldn't help but wonder what their world was like.

John O'Neill had called her...commander.

Sam shook her head, reminding herself this was her double, who made different choices than she did, and probably only had her face in common between them.

Sam wanted to meet her and yet not meet her at the same time.

_I wonder if Dad's okay in their reality. Do they know him? What about Mark? And his kids?_ Sam remembered visiting her brother with Jacob Carter only a few months back after escaping Netu and Sokar. She remembered how her niece felt heavy when she picked her up.

Were they alive over there as well?

Sam sighed, shaking her head, disgusted by standing there having ridiculous thoughts. She should be in the labs doing something practical and with a purpose rather than contemplating what ifs. She didn't before when she went for her degree. She didn't when she gave Jonas back his engagement ring, and she didn't when she received her assignment to Cheyenne Mountain.

No regrets. She'd never looked back. Not once.

So why was she still standing outside the door, wondering if her counterpart had long hair or short?

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Teal'c sat in the middle of his private room, seated in the usual position in the center of glowing candles. He took a deep breath, trying to draw in a calm state to meditate.

And found he could not.

Frowning, the Jaffa mentally chided himself. The arrival of John and Dan O'Neill marked a great battle to ensue. Surely this time could be spent centering himself before his participation?

Giving up on the attempt to meditate, Teal'c straightened out his legs and got up. He observed the candles around the room and deliberately went to each one to put them out. He extinguished the first candle by squeezing the wick between his thumb and index finger. Teal'c watched the smoke waft up, the candle losing its fire so quickly by a mere touch. He blew at it gently, and the embers ignited once more.

One would have thought such fire could be easily destroyed with the first attempt, but a little act could make it burn again.

Unbidden, John O'Neill's face came to mind and the gun he had whipped out in the embarkation room. Jack O'Neill never pulled a gun on him even when they had met on Chulak. At the time, O'Neill was a prisoner, but after that, the human warrior made sure to treat Teal'c with the same respect he would Major Carter or Daniel Jackson.

The gun pointed at him by a man who wore his comrade's face was a memory proving to be very distracting.

Teal'c was fully aware of his past. It was as constant a companion as he tried to be during every mission with his team. They never used his past out of spite or scorn. They understood it, and while they might not always be able to accept the harsh reminders of his past, always stood by him despite it.

He wondered if they knew that alone would have ensured his loyalty.

John O'Neill, however…

Trying to prove his loyalty, prove where he stood in the heat of battle. It was something he needed to do only briefly with O'Neill and the others, but this alternate version arrived with an innate hatred of him. And it bothered him to a great extent.

Then there was the matter of Dan O'Neill.

John O'Neill made it clear he wanted no Jaffa near his brother. And from what he observed in the observation room, the damage done to the ailing Dan O'Neill was by Ra and surely his Jaffa.

So Teal'c didn't protest when O'Neill quietly suggested he was to avoid them. O'Neill didn't want to provoke them. The scene in the embarkation room was evidence enough of how volatile John O'Neill was.

But now Teal'c wished he had a moment to speak with Dan O'Neill. He would be interested to see how different Dan O'Neill was from his friend Daniel Jackson, aside from the blindness and the family name. There was a sadness in Dan's eyes that made Teal'c wonder if he too had recently lost a wife like Daniel Jackson did.

And morbidly, Teal'c wondered if it was by his hand as well.

Back then, Teal'c had said their reality was the only one of consequence. He said it after tampering with the other dimension when he killed his other version there. The other Teal'c was still First Prime to Apophis, and Teal'c was reluctant to admit it, but it gave him immense pleasure to kill the traitor who had obviously neglected his people. He thought whatever happened to him in the other realities would be of no concern so long as they could remove the Goa'uld presence from Earth. He thought he wouldn't wonder about it.

He was wrong.

Teal'c couldn't stop thinking about it now. He did very well to not feel bothered when Daniel Jackson returned from the first trip and told his tale ending it with Teal'c's counterpart shooting him with a staff weapon. It had bothered him until O'Neill had convinced him that it wasn't him who harmed Daniel Jackson.

The Jaffa sat down on the bed, mulling over who Teal'c was in Dan O'Neill's world, the crimes he had done, and if any of his acts fell upon Dan and contributed to his misfortune.

Perhaps instead of thinking, he should be working.

With that plan in mind, Teal'c rose from his perch and left the room, seeking some productive activity.

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Janet tucked the frail wrist back in the blankets, all too aware of the gaze John pinned on her from his position at the edge of the bed. She eyed the nickel size discs and winced sympathetically. They looked so harmless from a distance, these plain looking circles, but she could see the skin pulled taunt around them when she examined him. "How long has he been like this?" she asked gently as she folded her stethoscope.

"A little over three years," John said flatly. He paused when he saw the shocked look on Fraiser's face. "It was only his sight at first, his motor skills I think maybe a year after that, but then…then it got worse." John swallowed, concentrating on the coffee which had come with the tray of food earlier.

"Was it because of these?" Janet reached over to touch the strange silver discs.

"Don't touch them!" John shouted, his eyes wide.

"J-john?" Dan stirred, frowning in his sleep as he heard the cry. He tried burrowing out of the mound of blankets on top of him. John blanched, placing a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Nothing…go back to sleep." John brushed back an unruly lock of hair from Dan's forehead, avoiding touching the devices on the temples. "Shh...it's nothing...just go back to sleep."

"'Kay…" Dan sighed, and he drifted off again.

John looked up and was stunned to see sadness in Doctor Fraiser's eyes. He had to remind himself that this was another reality. This Janet Fraiser was not the same Janet who—

"What do they do?"

_You know_, John thought bitterly, but said out loud, "They're directly fused into his cerebral cortex like a control panel. It…" John shrugged as he didn't really understand it himself. "Hell, I'm not sure what it does. Danny knows more about it than anyone else besides yo—"

"What?" Janet tore her eyes away to look at John.

"I think they basically send signals through his brain to tell it to shut down his body a little at a time," John said flatly. "It numbs his mind little by little until his entire system relies totally on those devices," he sighed, unable to hide his frustration. "First his sight, then his major organs one by one, then his…mind…" He choked as he thought of his brother's mind slowly losing that brilliant light, the knowledge that made him what he was today and which had also damned him with the Goa'uld. "Then his body would just…just give up and…" John didn't finish. A sour taste in his mouth came as he thought of the few he'd seen paraded around the mines—victims who were barely aware of their surroundings, their bodies too numb to do anything more than follow whoever dragged them by the chains around their throats.

Janet closed her eyes briefly. "I'm sorry."

John didn't reply. He looked away, listlessly patting Dan's knee under the blankets.

"There may be something we could do to help," Janet said softly. "They look similar to the mind probes SG-1 encountered a short time ago. The technology may be similar enough. We could take an MRI and maybe find some way to counter it or at least slow it down."

"He would have been dead months ago," John muttered. He eyed Fraiser warily. "No MRIs. No more machines. He's had enough."

Sighing, Janet almost reached out to John to put a hand on his knee, but saw him tense. "I'm not trying to get information from you. I'm trying to help. I'm a doctor and—"

"A doctor?" John couldn't stop himself. "A _doctor_? Let me tell you something about doctors! When Ra first came to us under the guise of peace, we sent our best doctors in hopes of exchanging information. And what did he do? He turned them against us! Used their minds, their skills, to create these!" His hand waved towards the silver discs barely visible under the strands of Dan's hair. "What the hell kind of help was that?" John shot up to his feet. "It was doctors like you! No! It was you! You! You who did this to him!" John lunged forward with a growl, looking like he was going to throttle Janet when the door burst open. Jack and Daniel rushed in.

"Take it easy!" Jack bellowed, grabbing John by the arm. Sam came in as well, pulling Janet away by the elbow.

"Are you okay?" Carter asked. Janet mutely nodded, her face white.

"Don't you touch me!" John roared, shoving the colonel away with such force, Jack didn't have time to stop himself from hitting the table and crashing to the floor.

"John!" Dan called, struggling to sit up. "What's wrong?"

The man shouted as Jack tackled him at the legs, not hearing his brother's horrified voice. "You bastards get off me!" His arm swung out and caught Jack in the chin.

"Jack!" Daniel tried to stand between John and his friend. "Captain O'Neill! Please!"

The man raged as he pushed back one soldier after another. There was no persuading him. Jack got up unsteadily, hand to his head, shaking it. Daniel reached out and grabbed for John's arm just as the man pulled a fist back to deliver another blow to the unaware colonel. Daniel flinched. When nothing happened, he looked up and saw a strange look fleeting over the captain's face before his eyes wandered over to his own fist over Daniel's face. Then John snarled, shoving Daniel away from him as he lowered his fist. Then the captain staggered back as Jack grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms back.

"John!" Dan called out, tumbling out of the bed. He grunted out softly when he hit the ground.

That sound got through to John like a siren. He whipped his head around, stunned when he saw Dan on the floor. He wrenched free from Jack's grasp and stumbled over to Dan. "God, you okay?"

Dan grabbed his outstretched hand fearfully, fumbling around to find John until the older man grabbed it tightly. "You have to calm down. This isn't…it isn't our reality."

"She's—"

"N-no." Dan said firmly. "She isn't. Not here." He fingered the devices on his temples before dropping his hand tiredly to the floor. "She didn't do this."

Janet stiffened, turning sharply to John. The man didn't look at her, refusing to meet her eyes as he gathered Dan in his arms.

The others stood there in stunned silence, the fight over before they could even comprehend how it began. Jack shook his head at the other guards, hand waving them back. He helped Daniel back up on to his feet, giving his friend a stern look when it looked like Jackson was going to ask something.

John ignored them all as he settled his brother back into bed. Dan curled against John's chest, gasping harshly as another wave of pain tore through his body and began to tremble violently.

"Dan?" John called worriedly when his brother moaned suddenly and slumped against him limp. He bowed his head, his chin resting on the fever damped hair. Then he looked up, his eyes bleak.

"May I?" Janet shook off Sam's grip and approached the brothers once more. She gave Jack a look as the colonel opened his mouth to say something. Jack sighed, nodding before stepping back, motioning the others to do the same. Fraiser held open her palms. "Please. Let me make sure he's all right."

John's dark eyes followed her as she slowly came over to their side. She sat on the bed edge and paused. When the captain didn't make a move to stop her, she gently took one of Dan's wrists.

"Looks like a minor seizure," Janet murmured, making sure to keep her voice soft and low. Her heart was still hammering, though. She'd had violent patients before, but the image of a familiar face so twisted with rage coming right at her stuck. It was something she was going to have a hard time forgetting.

John watched as she checked Dan's pulse, her motions careful and cautious. "He...he gets them sometimes...seems to get worse nowadays..."

Janet nodded. She glanced over to where her medical bag was, wondering if she could risk getting a syringe out when John spoke again.

"You said," John whispered hoarsely. "You said you might be able to help him. After what I did…would you—"

"Yes," Janet answered immediately. "Let me get a gurney and—"

"No need." John stood, cradling Dan in his arms, narrowing his eyes towards the guards who stepped forward to offer assistance. His eyes shadowed though as they fell upon the lax features of his brother. Glued to the sleeping form, John murmured, "Where is this infirmary?"

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Carefully holding his brother, John looked through the glass partition to the cylindrical machine with some doubt. The dim blue lighting of the room, the glass doors which would seal him away from his brother didn't look very appealing.

"It's an MRI," Janet explained, a distance away. She was still wary of John's unnerving stare. Jack and Sam stood on either side of her like bookends, and she found it comforting. "It looks into Dan's head and—-"

"I know what it does!" John snapped and Janet instinctively took a step back. He calmed and shook his head. "Sorry. I just hadn't seen one like this, so…advanced." The captain sighed.

"Did…did Ra eliminate all of your medical technology after the invasion?" Daniel asked cautiously, seated in a chair behind Jack.

John didn't look at Jackson as he answered. "He made sure there wasn't really much technology left for us, taking most for himself. Yeah. He…eliminated it…" John looked down at Dan, his grip tightening a bit. The younger man's head rolled to the side, striking his chest. His face saddened, eyes dulling as he whispered, "Among other things."

Jack grated his teeth. Again, John was skirting the issue, refusing to say more about his world or how he had even gotten here. But despite the frustration, Jack found he couldn't stay mad at himself...no...at John. Each time the soldier looked at the fragile form in his arms, Jack's gut twisted. It was unnerving. Too damn unnerving to see someone so still, so…bone weary, when the counterpart sitting near him was so animated. He had to keep checking out of the corner of his eye to make sure Daniel was sitting next to him.

_No wonder Daniel's spooked_, Jack thought darkly.

Jack was getting the chills, too.

"Just lay him out on the table. The machine will move him into the scanners automatically," Janet instructed. John stood by the door, watching the thick glass partition slide open silently. John stepped inside and whispered something to Dan before setting him on the table. He draped the sheet that was there over Dan and brushed back the long locks from sunken, closed eyes.

"Captain?" Jack spoke into the mike. "You need to be outside."

John stayed where he was. "No."

Janet took the mike. "Captain O'Neill? We need to get a clear image of what's inside. Too many people could distort the image."

Head bowed, John sat at the edge of the bed, refusing to leave.

"Captain O'Neill?"

Dan shakily dropped his hand on John's arm. "I'll be okay here," he whispered. "They're trying to help."

"But…"

"I'm…not going anywhere," Dan whispered.

John's eyes glistened. "Better not." He ruffled the locks again, stood up and walked out of the room before he could change his mind. The door slid shut behind him, and John stiffened. The man turned around, glaring at the glass.

"It'll only be a few moments," Sam tried to assure the man. The captain stared at the glass, leaning forward to get a better view. Then she saw his shoulders tense and wondered if something had gone wrong but decided that wasn't it. They hadn't even started yet. But when she heard the footsteps behind her, Sam turned around and realized John had noticed Teal'c's approaching reflection in the observation window's glass.

"What is he doing here?" John hissed.

"I do not wish to upset you," Teal'c said in a solemn voice. "I came to offer my help. To see if the device is familiar in my world."

"We don't need your kind of help—"

"Look, when are you going to get it through your head that your reality isn't our reality?" Jack snapped. His eyes darted over to Daniel before continuing. "In our reality, Teal'c is an honorable man, a valuable member of my team! Got it?"

"Thank you, O'Neill." Teal'c acknowledged the words with a slight bow. Jack grunted.

John refused to apologize. "I haven't met an honorable Jaffa y—"

"H-hey…" Dan's voice came through the speakers. His brother shot up from his seat.

"What is it? Are you ok—"

"John." There was a definite tone of exasperation in the weary man's voice.

The captain stepped up to the microphone Janet offered to him. "What?"

"Don't be an ass."

Dan's voice was weak, but there was the lilt of teasing that sounded so comfortable, so familiar, Jack wasn't surprised to see John wasn't upset. The captain just shook his head, looked back at Teal'c, and then back through the window to the MRI.

"Watch your mouth, Mutt," John said softly into the mouthpiece before sitting down again.

Dan laughed softly. He waved weakly to the glass, signaling he was ready.

Janet darted a look towards John, who had his eyes glued to the window. With a nod, she signaled the technician to begin.

The machinery hummed to life. Dan could feel the warmth of the scanner's light as the platform he was on began to slide into the MRI. For a moment, he panicked, unused to being alone in the darkness, but he held onto the comforting thought that John was in the other room. Usually, that would have been enough.

_"So this is your room for now," John muttered as he waved his hand towards the sparse furnishing of the former nursery. "And Dad's gonna get the small bookcase from the garage." The teen grimaced at the yellow ducks decorating the wallpaper._

_Dan pulled his hand away from clutching the hem of John's T-shirt and tentatively peered around the teenager to see inside the space. He stared at the size of the cheerfully decorated room. _

_"Like it?"_

_Dan shrugged as he went over to his new bed and gave it an experimental bounce. Dan patted the quilted surface and blinked at John. "It's a bed."_

_John rolled his eyes as he'd seen his father do. "I know that!"_

_"Lily made me sleep on the couch." Dan bounced on the bed once more and then stopped, realizing that was a mistake. His eyes filled with concern. "She said I was too young for a bed." He looked at John anxiously, little hands clutching the bedspread underneath him. "Are you sure I can have this?"_

_The teenager felt angry all over again, wishing that he'd met this Lily so he could tell her a thing or two. That funny feeling came over him again, every time Dan looked at him for the answers._

_"Yeah, you can have this. What kind of stupid quest—" John stopped, groaning to himself when he saw the little boy duck his head._

_"Sorry."_

_Dan sat on the edge of the bed, looking very nervous, playing with the colorful quilt that was on top of the mattress. John shuffled from foot to foot, suddenly realizing that aside from the fact he knew Lily was a bad person who must have mistreated Daniel, he knew nothing else. It made him feel very strange. Suddenly, it didn't feel…cool…anymore having a younger brother._

_"Well…" John coughed awkwardly. "You might as well…um…check out your room. I'll see you." He turned around to leave._

_"Where are you going?" Dan blurted out in a panic._

_The teen turned around with a frown. "To my room."_

_"Oh." Dan looked downcast._

_"What?"_

_"I thought…" Dan flushed slightly and he turned away. "Never mind." He lay on the bed, his small feet donned with new sneakers dangling off the edge, and he rested his head on the pillow._

_"It's…it's a very nice bed," he offered._

_John sighed, wandering over to the bed and sat down next to Dan's feet. The little boy tilted his head up, startled._

_"What?" he repeated._

_Dan bit his lower lip, unsure how to begin. "I don't like sleeping alone," the boy confessed and flinched, waiting for the explosion._

_Instead, John gaped at him. "Huh?"_

_"Mommy and Daddy used to let me sleep on their bed," Dan said softly, his eyes glistening as he remembered. "When it got scary at the different places we went, they let me sleep on their bed."_

_"You go to a lot of places?" John asked, leaning against the backboard._

_Shrugging, Dan didn't answer immediately. He shuffled slightly, dropping his head a bit to stare at the dark blue carpeting. "Lots of places. Egypt. Madrid. Peru."_

_"Wow." John grinned. "Sounds cool. I always wanted to see the mummies in Egypt. See if they were like in the movies. Wonder if they do this?" He made like a mummy on a black and white horror flick he saw once when he'd snuck down to watch television past his curfew. Arms outstretched, a grimace on its face, eyes rolling up, John made exaggerated moaning sounds like how he'd seen it. The boy giggled._

_Dan smiled shyly at him. "I saw one once."_

_"Really?" John sat up straighter, his interest piqued. "What was it like? Was it really old and smelly?"_

_Dan wrinkled his nose as he recalled. "It smelled bad." The boy sat up, crossing his legs as he continued, voice louder as he described it. "But…it was kinda neat. The mummy had cloth strips wrapped around it."_

_"No clothes?" John was intrigued. "You mean it was naked?"_

_Shaking his head, Dan pulled at the heavy quilt. "No. Daddy said they wore clothes and lots of jewelry and stuff. The priests took all the organs out and stuck them in jars that looked like animals. Then," he yanked at the blanket, wrapping it slightly around himself. John grinned. Dan looked funny, his pale face barely visible under the colorful squares of elephants and giraffes that decorated the quilt. He went on in a muffled voice "They wrap the mummy in more cloth to protect the stuff."_

_"Cool." The teen laughed at Dan's getup. "So you're a mummy, too?" He reached over and tapped the quilt covered head with two fingers._

_Dan shook his head again, his long locks clinging to the blanket from the static electricity. _

_"No. That is only for important people like kings and queens. I can't be a mummy. I have to be important."_

_John's smile faded. "You shouldn't say stuff like that."_

_Dan blinked. "Why?"_

_"Because it isn't nice," John mumbled, not knowing why he was bothered to hear it. _

_"But Lily—"_

_"Lily's wrong!" John snapped._

_Flushing a bit, Dan turned his head away. The teen caught sight of the trembling lower lip and he sighed, wondering why he ever opened his big dumb mouth anyway._

_"Um…" John began, trying to change the subject. "That sounds pretty neat…to go to all those places." The teen looked wistful. "I wanted to see lots of places. All I've seen is this town."_

_"I can't go anymore," Dan told him sadly._

_"Why not?"_

_"Because Mommy and Daddy are…they're not here any more." Dan's lower lip quivered again._

_The little boy looked ready to burst into tears again. John began to fidget, hand rubbing the back of his neck again until he thought of something._

_"We could go!" the teen blurted out. Dan looked up, sniffling. John felt his cheeks turn red as he continued. "Uh…when I'm older, that is. I've been saving money from my after school job. I wanted to go see Egypt. You could…you could come with me." In truth, John was saving for a motorcycle. It was a secret since his father would kill him if he knew that was what the money was for, but the teen figured that it couldn't hurt to tell Dan that. At least the boy stopped sniffling. _

_"Really?" Dan wiped his nose with his sleeve, and John made a face._

_"Sure," the teenager fibbed. "When you're older."_

_"I could show you the Giza," Dan told John solemnly. "And point where the real mummies are."_

_John looked startled. "Yeah, I guess you could." He grinned at the thought. Suddenly, Egypt didn't sound too bad. "Yeah, you could. That sounds pretty cool." _

_Daniel smiled back hesitantly. _

_Stretching, John got up. "Well, I'd better get ready for bed. Mom's going to be hollering soon if I don't—What?"_

_"Can you…can you stay here?" Dan asked quietly, his eyes wide and fearful. _

_"I won't fit," John pointed to the small bed._

_Dan lowered his eyes. "Oh."_

_John chewed his lip thoughtfully. His bed wasn't wide enough either, and he wasn't too keen with the idea of sharing it. John brightened as he figured out a solution. "Wait right here." The teen scooted out of the room._

_Staring at the warm spot where John had sat, Dan shuffled over until he was on top of the sunken area, sighing as he curled onto its lingering warmth. When it was cold in Lily's apartment, he would sleep over the spot the woman sat on for hours, flicking through channels of their black and white as she waited for her husband to come staggering home. Out of habit, Dan did the same. _

_John came back in with a long rope. Dan sat up a bit, noticing the bells attached to each end of it. _

_"Here you go," John quipped as he tied one end of the rope to the bedpost. He gave it an experimental tug, nodding as he heard the bells tingle. _

_"Just yank this if you get scared, and I'll come over."_

_Dan poked at the rope curiously, smiling a bit when he heard the bells chime._

_"In some islands, they use bells to tell them if ghosts are coming."_

_John looked down at his invention with a frown. "So you're saying I made a ghost alarm?"_

_Shrugging, Dan pulled at the rope, giggling when he heard the bells. John laughed as well. _

_"So you're okay with this then?" John waved towards the bedroom._

_The little boy tugged at the rope, making the bells sound out again, its chime loud and clear. John grinned, and Dan smiled back. The teen ruffled the boy's hair again, wondering why he found it funny when Dan protested. He bade him good night and went back to his room. _

_Later on that night, John O'Neill's mother noticed the rope snaking from Dan's room and her son's room. She smiled, knowing full well whose idea it probably was. The woman shrugged, figuring it would be all right for now._

_"They'd better not be asking me for room service," she murmured with a warm smile._

_After a few weeks of them ringing the bells back and forth for no reason at all, she didn't think it was funny anymore._

"Hey, John?" Dan said softly, the microphones picking it up.

"What?" The captain's voice sounded strange coming through the PA speakers.

"We need a bell in here."

"Now don't you start," John scolded, the smile audible in his voice.

John noticed the others' curious stares. "Um...something we did when we were kids," John mumbled, wondering why he felt a need to explain.

"Ring for help when you got scared?" Jack spoke up suddenly.

The captain turned around in surprise. "Yeah. How did you—"

"Did that with my kid when he got his own room the first time," the colonel said softly, his eyes clouded over with memories. He noticed John's eyes did the same.

"C-charlie?" The captain said it like it was sacred.

Jack just nodded. His chest tightened as he realized some things truly never change, no matter what.

Sensing an awkward moment, Daniel coughed, puzzled when he got a glare from John in response. Jack noticed it too, and he shifted slightly as if his seat was uncomfortable, shuffling until his chair was in front of Daniel's.

"Something wrong?" Jack asked tightly.

John turned to the window, his back stiff.

"I'm getting something right now," Janet murmured, more to break the tension than anything else. The technician, who was assisting her, chimed in when he received an image as well. She tapped at the monitor, pointing to the reddish picture of the brain.

"We're optimizing the image right no—What the?"

"What is it?" Sam asked anxiously, getting off her chair and heading over to Janet.

Janet stared at the screen for a moment before responding. The doctor pointed to the silvery filaments on the monitor. "That...I assumed that the device implanted in Doctor O'Neill's cerebrum was like those mind probes and could be easily removed." She indicated the spider web like threads. "It's literally infiltrated the cortex."

Jack craned to get a better look, and when he saw the gray white lines streaking across the monitor, he winced and sat back in his seat, no longer wanting to see. He twisted around to Daniel and saw his head bowed.

"It can't be removed?" Sam asked quietly.

Janet shook her head. "No. They're tapped into the adrenaline glands too." Janet darted a look towards John. "Somehow, it's keeping the adrenaline flowing against the drain of the device and—" The doctor jumped when the image flickered. "What the—"

"What's happening?" Now Jack was on his feet. Janet tapped at the computer, exchanging a puzzled look with the technician.

"We're getting some sort of interference, it's distorting the image—" Janet rolled her chair back when a spark leapt from the keyboard.

Jack swore, yanking her chair roughly until she was further away from the console. John whirled around, about to demand what was going on when he heard Dan scream.


	5. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER FOUR**

The first realization that something was wrong was when darkness became light.

Dan thought he had fallen asleep and just woken up; the Goa'uld device not yet activating until he was fully awake. But when the light started to burn in his eyes, Dan knew something was terribly wrong.

Then, the pain began.

The young man arched his back, gasping as a bolt seared through his body, radiating from the device itself, cascading down like fire along his back and legs. Automatically, he drew his hands up to the discs, but shrieked when the sparks scalded his fingertips. He could feel his legs kicking, thrashing, unable to cope with the pain. Lost in the agony, unable to find some sort of control, Dan reacted—calling for the only person he knew who ever made the misery go away in his entire life.

"JOHN!"

The captain went stark white as he turned back towards the glass divider and saw his brother writhing on the platform. With a roar, he went to the sliding doors, slamming into them.

"Let me in!" John demanded, banging his fists on the thick glass, not even rattling it. "Why aren't they opening?"

"The system's overloading!" Sam shouted, wincing as yet another monitor exploded. Smoke began to fill the room. Jack immediately grabbed a fire extinguisher to put the flames out.

"Jack!" Daniel seized the colonel by the arm. "We have to get him out of there!"

John, in the meantime, grabbed a chair and tried to throw it against the glass, but it barely made a crack. He could still hear his brother screaming inside. He could still see him twisting in pain, the thin cover knotted around his legs. Furious at the glass in front of him, outraged at his own helplessness, John bashed his fists against the clear divider once more. Blood dotted the surface where the skin on his knuckles tore but again the glass wouldn't give.

"Damn it! Let me in there!"

Teal'c cut through the crowd with a rifle from the guards. "Stand aside," he calmly said and fired it against the glass. The material actually caved in slightly, cracking at the site of impact, but it still wouldn't shatter. It didn't deter Teal'c, however. The Jaffa bunched his hands into a double fist and swung hard into the glass.

Crack.

John, realizing that one person wouldn't do it, followed Teal'c's example. The two men swung simultaneously and struck the glass.

Crack.

With a tinkle, shards exploded into the room under the twin attacks. Teal'c got through the newly formed hole before John could, deftly scooped an unconscious Dan into his arms and passed him into John's waiting ones. The MRI scanners shattered in a mix of lightning and smoke. Debris of burst bulbs flew out from the machine as deadly projectiles.

John staggered a bit, coughing from the smoke, nearly doubling over as he clutched tightly to Dan. When he felt someone take Dan from him, he feebly protested, but before he could try and reach for him, another coughing fit came over him. John recovered almost immediately when he felt an oxygen mask being placed on his face. Looking up with tear bleary eyes, he saw Daniel gazing at him anxiously, one hand holding his forearm to lend him support.

"Dan." John pulled off the breathing mask and grasped Daniel by the arms, his grip tight. "You okay?"

"Captain O'Neill?" Daniel asked, peering into his face with concern. "Do you need a doctor? Jack's got your brother over there. They're checking him—"

John's eyes narrowed. With a push harder than he had intended, John shoved Daniel away. Daniel, caught off guard, stumbled. Jack shot forward and grabbed Daniel by the arm before he could fall. Jack's arm snaked forward to grab John's.

"What the hell was that for?" Jack demanded as John stood there, stretching his neck, trying to find his brother's whereabouts. The colonel looked furious.

"Just...keep him away from me," John managed, brushing past Jack. He stopped short in front of Teal'c who was being tended to by one of the nurses. The Jaffa had watched the exchange silently.

The two men stared at each other for the longest time. Jack was about to step in before a confrontation started when John suddenly spoke.

"Koer hylo, Jaffa," the captain said softly, his tone serious but not angry. John hesitated as if realizing it might have been a mistake. A strange look fleeted across his face before he turned around abruptly.

Teal'c bowed his head slightly at the departing captain, his eyebrow up in mild surprise when he heard the words.

"What did he say?" Jack demanded, a bit stunned to hear himself...no...John, talk in perfect Goa'uld.

Daniel whispered as he stared at John's back. "He said he owes a life debt to the Jaffa." Daniel looked to Teal'c who nodded at the translation. "That he owed an honor debt to Teal'c."

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

"What's taking her so long?" John groused as he paced the room outside the infirmary after being shooed out. Now they were all seated in the hard plastic chairs outside of the room, watching John O'Neill go left and right in a tight, confined circle. The captain eyed the double doors, looking half tempted to barge back in again.

"They have to make sure he's okay, Captain O'Neill," Sam said, glancing over to Jack as she spoke. The colonel was looking at John, his jaw set, still fuming over how hostile the man was to Daniel. _Their_ Daniel. It just didn't make any sense.

"What happened back there?" Jack spoke, and the man before him stilled.

John sighed, running a hand through his hair and stared at his hand for a moment before speaking. "How the hell should I know! Maybe those things on him reacted."

"Could be the entropic cascade effect, sir," Carter pointed out to O'Neill. Jack groaned, agreeing as he remembered.

"The what?" John stopped and stared at her.

"Oh...sorry." At Jack's tired nod, the major went on. "You see, I had a doppelganger come through this mirror device we discovered on P3R-233 and had stored in Area 51. Except, we couldn't co-exist in the same reality. When two points of realities merge in the same dimension, we get what we call an entropic cascade effect or failure on the cellular level." Carter winced inwardly, recalling the terrible twisting and warping her double's appearance took when it came.

Sam paused as she decided how to continue, and the rest came out in a rapid rush of words. "When the effect takes place, it begins a breakdown of the molecular structure of the reality that is not in sync with the corresponding dimension. This all happens on a cellular level and can literally tear the new element in this dimension apart."

"Uh..." John blinked, one eyebrow arched towards her, his concern temporarily gone as he gawked at the major.

The colonel shook his head ruefully. _Maybe I should have asked her to use some sort of example with an apple or something again. _

"What?" Sam looked at Jack, then at John, puzzled why they both looked like they swallowed something too large for their throats.

Jack sighed, sympathizing with the confused captain. Choosing his words carefully, Jack summarized it. "You don't belong to this reality, meet your twin and get major headache for it."

"Uh...huh." John eyed Sam warily. "I take it then it's bad—" The captain stiffened as he realized what that meant. "Shit! Then Dan—"

"We had a forty eight hour window before it happened with my double," Sam reassured the man, but she frowned as she turned back to the double doors again. "Although, I wonder if those devices might speed up the process."

"Would they?" Jack asked quietly, eyeing John. His anger towards John dissipated for a moment as he winced for what might come for the captain.

"I don't know, sir." Sam chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. "I mean...the mind probes tap into our cerebral cortex for memory, not in such a complete matter or on a molecular level. From what I figured back then, they tap only into the area where memories generate. But those..." She shrugged helplessly. "They could be activated by the MRI or something in our atmosphere you don't have on your world—"

John sat down suddenly on the opposite side. "Damn." He dropped his face into his hands as he remembered something. He didn't realize the other two turned their gaze on him. "I think I know what it might be."

_"I am pleased...you have been a fine warrior." The Pharaoh's eyes shone with pleasure as John approached the throne room. The alien ruler brushed a heavily jeweled hand across his velvet robes before continuing, smiling with approval at John as he would a cat curled up under his feet. "Abydos has yielded satisfactory results in the mines."_

_John glared at him, saying nothing. _

_"I have a...gift for you," the man intoned, and John's eyes narrowed._

_"I need no gift!" John spat out. Just a ticket home, he thought, wondering once more how long it had been._

_"One year."_

_John blinked._

_"As agreed when we had offered the juzkaer to your people, one year...before you may return to your homes and families."_

_Had it been one year already?_

_"You may leave. You have one month before we retrieve you." John could hear a chain rattling, and he frowned._

_"And you may have him back...as a gift." Ra laughed softly as he stood. John forced himself to keep his head bowed. _

_Ra paused, leaning to his ear, amusement clear in his velvet dual voice. "I tire of him."_

_John didn't turn his head to track his departure. His eyes were glued to the curtains behind the throne._

_"Oh God." John fell to his knees when he saw the man the chain was attached to, barely crawling as the child jerked the length of bonds as if he was some sort of pet._

_It was Dan._

"Captain?" Jack's concerned voice broke through his cloud.

John blearily looked up. "I've tried taking them out before."

_The rings deposited him right down to his home. _

_"T-they lied..." John croaked when he saw the devastation of the home he grew up in. _

_One long year working the mines, thinking all this hell was worth it if it meant that they were safe. Mom, Dad, Sara—_

_And Dan._

_But they lied._

_They were all gone. From the looks of the shattered glass coffee table, the dust that coated the once deep blue carpet like a sheet, they grabbed them all not too long after he turned himself in. And they must have found out about them hiding Dan._

_Dan stirred, the first time since John gathered the slight body up in his arms in the throne room. John didn't waste any time, walking past the broken shelves and torn books that once lined them and carried him up to the old bedroom._

_The blanket went over Dan's shoulders, and John sat down on the edge of the bed. He swallowed, blinking away the hot tears that wanted to fall, habit forcing him to school his face to one of stone; the same face the mining slaves begged and pleaded to for their freedom from him. Dan stiffened as the cover was wrapped around him and he shrank back into a tensed huddle. Sightless eyes looking at nothing as the man made no sound to ask where he was._

_John spied the silver devices on his brother's temples and rage exploded in his chest. He'd seen them before. He knew what they were. It was a slow death sentence for Dan. Ra released him so he could watch Dan die._

_John grabbed his brother, roughly bringing him close to him, hating how the young man trembled under his grip. "I'm so sorry, Danny...They lied to all of us. You were supposed to be safe..."_

_"J-john?" _

"You took them out before?" Sam asked. "We encountered something almost like them, and they came off with little pain." Carter absently rubbed the spot where her probe had been attached. She could almost feel the cold metal pressed close to her skin.

"Tried." John closed his eyes briefly. He could hear Dan scream as every attempt to remove them failed. He could still hear him; a young man never with a complaint or wish for anything, begging him to stop, he wept in John's arms then when the pain became too much. John hadn't seen his brother cry since the first wave of invasion had taken out the university; Daniel's friends, colleagues and his fiancée all killed with that first strike.

"They're rigged to backfire on the person wearing them. Take them out now, and he's dead within minutes. I didn't get to him in time…they were in too long." John stared at the double doors. His eyes looked distant, not really seeing the doors.

Jack studied the slumped shoulders. "Fighting the Goa'uld?"

A sad tug at the corner of his mouth, John shook his head. "Not exactly," he replied mysteriously.

"We're trying to help you." Sam leaned forward, her voice soft. "Surely you can see that we're not the enemy. You can trust us."

"Dan does."

"Smart guy," Jack quipped.

John laughed, his voice strained. "Yeah…and look where it got him." The captain didn't glance up as he went on. His eyes glazed over as he remembered.

"Ra was pretty much quiet when he first came to orbit. Hell, Dan was practically in seventh heaven at the time. We really didn't expect…I mean…we were prepared…when the satellites first sighted his ship but we had no idea...we just didn't know...we were still figuring out how the damn Stargate worked when...God…" John's voice lowered, his self-disgust evident. "We were so stupid then...if only we knew sooner, if only we'd suspected..."

_"I'm telling you, John!" Dan's eyes shone with excitement as he waved the file. "This…Doorway to Heaven thing…my God…I really believe it can take us to other places! We have a few combinations it locks on so the theory fits. Meyers and I are going to try variations and—"_

_John stopped chewing on his ham sandwich, glancing around as the other soldiers paused at the sight. Some chuckled at the sight of his brother once again oblivious to the attention he was drawing. It was the usual Doctor O'Neill floorshow. "Sit down, Mutt. You're drawing a crowd."_

_"And to think you weren't going to tell me about any of this!" His younger brother glared at him. John wiped his mouth with an olive green sleeve, rolled his eyes and yanked him by the arm down to a seat._

_"Will you sit down? This isn't one of your classes." John shoved a tray towards him, motioning towards the food, telling him to eat. "This is NORAD, okay? Not University of Colorado, Professor O'Neill."_

_"That's Doctor to you," Dan quipped as he slipped on his glasses. He blinked owlishly at the file. "And these signals—"_

_"Look, will you calm down?" John couldn't stop the grin from spreading across his face. It was hard not to get carried away with Dan's enthusiasm. "It could be echoes on our satellites. Hell, wouldn't be the first time the Pentagon wet their pants all over their own recordings ricocheting back to us."_

_"But right after opening the gate to the coordinates on the cartouche?" Dan's hands were waving. "John…they may have been alerted to our presence and came to say—"_

_"Yoo hoo?" John piped up as he spear forked a lettuce leaf from his salad. With a cocky grin he knew his brother hated so much, he chomped down on the rest of his lunch. _

_Dan glared at him. "Not exactly." The scientist shuffled his papers around. "Catherine's planning to try sending someone through now as a first run test—"_

_"What?" John exclaimed, and the cafeteria seemed to still. His smile curled the other way into a frown. "You're not thinking—"_

_"Why not? I helped out in deciphering the cartouche."_

_Actually, Jack thought to himself, you broke the code. They were sitting on their hands for the past three years, getting overpaid before they approached you and me._

_"No."_

_Dan blinked. "What?"_

_"I said no." John calmly took another bite out of his sandwich. "We don't know what's on the other side. Me and Kawalsky will try and—"_

_"Shoot anything that sneezes," Dan finished._

_"Precisely. So I don't want you there distracting me. One sneeze from you and I might mistake you for one of those little green men." He looked over to Dan. "So the answer is no."_

_"You're not the commanding officer of this project. West—"_

_"Will abide by my wishes as per the conditions I agreed to when I brought you over to this project." John's eyes narrowed. "They came to me first, remember? As security detail and experience with Special Ops. If it weren't for that woman Catherine—"_

_Dan's blue eyes blazed. "I don't see why you're angry at her for—"_

_"She went behind my back—"_

_"Because she knew I would be interested—"_

_"No right to start involving you in some military—"_

_"I'm not a child!" Dan stood up again, his mouth a tight line, eyes glaring at his brother. He ignored the other soldiers who were listening in with growing interest. It wasn't the first time the brothers butted heads on one thing or another. "You can't go around deciding stuff for me!"_

_"This is a military facility. There are no tests to give, to pass or fail. Things run a little differently here than in your classrooms, Doctor Danny."_

_"John, sometimes you can such a condescending jack—"_

_"Gentlemen!" _

_"Yes, sir?" John recognized the stars. He got up and gave a sharp salute. "General—"_

_"Hammond. George Hammond. I was called in by West's request."_

_"About the radio signals?" Dan broke in. _

_John mentally groaned. No matter how many times he told him, Dan never seemed to remember the military weren't always open to comments without asking for them._

_Hammond arched an eyebrow towards the enthusiastic scientist._

_"Uh…this is Doctor—"_

_"O'Neill." Dan latched on and pumped Hammond's hand enthusiastically. "Daniel O'Neill. I am a consultant under Doctor Langford's team for the Stargate project."_

_Hammond eyed John's nametag on his fatigues, then back to Dan. "Related?"_

_"Unfortunately," John muttered, ignoring the glare his brother shot him. _

_The general smiled, his stern features easing to a friendly manner. John blinked in surprise. _

_"Well, gentlemen. I see this is going to be a very interesting experience." He eyed Dan with a thoughtful look. "You're the linguist of the team, aren't you?"_

_Dan looked over to his brother, surprised before replying. "Um…yes, sir."_

_"Well…then you are the fellow I needed to see. Son," he motioned the two to follow him. They left their trays and went after the general. "How would you like to translate some radio signals?"_

_John nearly walked into the wall as Dan shot him a triumphant grin. "Signals? You mean they weren't echoes?"_

_"Oh no, Doctor O'Neill. Unless signals learned to change their messages all on their own."_

_"Guess I won't be going through the Stargate just now. And neither are you," Dan whispered to John before picking up the pace to go after General Hammond._

_John shook his head. "Why am I not too happy with that?" he muttered. And he went after the two already deep in conversation._

"They sent a message, asking to speak with those of the Stargate," John went on in a dull voice. "Dan learned their language through the set of alphabets he got in exchange for ours. I…No one could believe how fast he picked it up. A language that hadn't been spoken for thousands of years."

Jack nodded. He remembered going through those tunnels, surprised as he heard Daniel and Sha're talking in a language the archeologist wasn't able to even say hello in when they first arrived on Abydos.

"So you guys never went through? To Abydos?" Sam inquired as she tried to discreetly check her watch. She glanced at the double doors with some concern and caught the colonel doing the same.

"I did…later on." John didn't try to explain. "We…after first contact, we spent weeks collaborating with world leaders, translating what Ra sent us—"

"So you never found out…" the colonel broke in, stunned. "You guys never found out about what Ra was before—"

"Oh, we found out alright," John said bitterly. "Right after his two battleships released over a thousand death gliders to attack the major cities." His voice sounded far away. "First they took out Washington and Moscow. Then Beijing and London. Then they burned out the major communication cities like New York and Tokyo." With a heavy sigh, he dropped his head further, elbows on his knees.

"Good Lord," Sam breathed.

"They left the smaller cities and the agricultural states alone."

"Ra wanted resources," Jack said grimly.

"Damn right. And slaves. He'd rather have live slaves than dead ones."

"There was no one fighting back?" Sam's voice dropped further to a whisper.

The captain's head shot up. "We were still talking peace negotiations with his viziers when they attacked the first city!"

_John didn't even wait for the jeep to come to a complete stop. He jumped out, barely hearing Kawalsky shouting at his back as he rushed into his home._

_"Jonathan, what on Earth?" His mother looked up in surprise. She and Sara were seated in the living room, his wife's hands spread out to hold the colorful red yarn._

_"Where's Dad?" John panted._

_"I don't know. He was talking with your brother upstairs—John! What's wrong?" _

_John took the steps two at a time as he ran up there, past the old nursery, to the attic which was converted to a study for Dan a few years back. He didn't even knock, just swung the door wide open with one sudden push._

_"Johnny! What's wrong?" His father exclaimed, looking up from the scroll Dan was showing him. Dan tilted his head, puzzled._

_"John?"_

_"They…" John tried to catch his breath. He stopped, hearing Sara and his mother coming up the stairs behind him. _

_"Dad, they just took out Washington."_

_"Oh God."_

_"No." Sara's hands flew up to her mouth._

_Dan's eyes were wide as circles. "A-are you sure?"_

_"Kawalsky got his wife on the phone. She's heading for Cheyenne right now. All military personnel and their families were told to go there. Evac procedures have been put in effect. The Stargate's been dialed. We're going through to those coordinates you deciphered after all."_

_"John, what is this all about?" His mother grabbed her son by the arm. "You mean those visitors? They did this?"_

_"We don't have time!" John's voice rose higher. He could hear Kawalsky frantically honking the horn outside. _

_Daniel's hands loosened its grip from the scroll. It fluttered down, landing on the floor, crushing yellowed paper. His mouth was slightly open, he took a step towards his brother._

_"Sarah—"_

_"There's no time, Danny." John yanked him towards him, trying to enforce his words. "There's no time. Looks like the networks just lost their satellites. But the radios are beginning to do their bulletins. If we don't leave now, we'll never even get a chance to leave town—"_

_"No! Sarah! I have to get her!"_

_"Daniel!" John grabbed his brother by the shoulders. "She'll never make it in time!"_

_"She's at the university! I can—"_

_"No! We can't!" John shook him. Sara was ushering his mother downstairs to start packing. "I'm sorry, Danny. We can't."_

_Dan stared at him with stricken eyes, mouth moving silently, saying "Please"._

_"Come on, son." His father draped an arm around Dan's shoulders. "We'd better grab some things and go." His voice was husky with tears, and he looked over his shoulder towards John._

_They never got to leave. The death gliders swooped in to circle the town just as radios began broadcasting evacuation procedures, and the long forgotten emergency alarms blared._

"Bastards hit the schools. One by one." John clenched his fists. "Most of the academia were invited to the universities as a sort of cultural exchange. To meet with Goa'uld scholars to trade information."

"A trap," Jack summarized darkly.

John nodded. "Dan forgot something. He went back to our place to get it. If he hadn't... Damn fluke. Goddamn fluke…" John dropped his face into his hands once more. His voice muffled as he tried continuing.

Jack didn't want to hear any more. And he was glad Daniel was inside the infirmary with Teal'c and Doctor O'Neill. He didn't know how the young man was going to be able to hear this. He knew he couldn't. Jack could already see the dark picture in his head. It didn't matter if he was never there. The way John's shoulders slumped, hands clenching and unclenching into fists was enough to paint the image of destruction in his mind he didn't need any more details.

"Survivors began showing up underground. Those who never went to the schools, those who survived the initial attack. Guards were posted planetside, shooting anyone who looked like they were from the universities. We…"

"You hid him?" Sam asked, referring to his brother.

"Tried. First time, they found him and my family. Second time...he was caught. Took me days to find out where he was. There really wasn't any place to hide him. There's no place left but the base now." John wouldn't explain any further.

_"I don't know." John eyed the area with a frown. The darkness wavered from black to gray as light from the above grates streamed down. Shadows of people strolling over the grates danced all over the floors._

_Catherine Langford waved towards the ladder leading up to the surface. "The tunnels were originally for the subways, but as you can see, that's useless right now." She walked over to Dan, who was leaning heavily against John._

_"Hello, Daniel," Catherine murmured, a hand brushing against his cheek. "It's good to see you again."_

_A smile weakly broke out as slender fingers stroked his cheek. "C-Catherine. My God, you're here. Are you okay? Ernest? Sandra?"_

_"Sandra was taken during the first wave. They've spared me and Ernest because of that." A sad look came over the elderly woman's face. She laughed dryly. "Apparently, they thought a pair of old people would be useless except for blackmail over their slaves."_

_"Yeah," John said shortly as he took Dan by the elbow. "Watch your step, Mutt."_

_"I'm sorry, Catherine." Dan's thin hand reached out and touched her shoulder briefly. His pale face was painted in sorrow. "When?"_

_"A few weeks after Cheyenne was attacked." Catherine took hold of Dan's other arm, and together, they helped the young man toward the ladder. She eyed John seriously. "Commander said you were heading back?"_

_John looked down at Dan regretfully. "They'll notice I'm gone from the mines if I don't return soon. I can't piss these serpents off. Otherwise—"_

_"Otherwise you won't gain Seth's favor and stay on his ship," Dan finished. He sighed as his hands were placed on the bottom rungs of the ladder. He shakily stepped up the ladder after Catherine, John's hand pushing him from behind. _

_"We need more info, Mutt. And not from slaves or from the harems either. They're getting more and more scared. They don't think we can protect them any more. No one could convince them. Not even Jol—"_

_"I wish you'd told me about this before so we could have at least talked it over!" Dan's voice rang out, echoing into the tunnels._

_"Dan!" John hissed. _

_The three froze, waiting for the last of the sound to fade away. When there was no responding footsteps of possible guards patrolling the tunnels, everyone relaxed._

_"Sorry." Dan lowered his voice._

_John sighed as he climbed up the ladder, pushing at the metal cover above to let Dan through. Catherine whispered it was clear, and he watched his brother disappear from his_ _sight before following. _

_Eyeing the stone walls, at the vast space, John blinked. It was as large as the embarkation room of Cheyenne Mountain. There were taped up phone lines, old Morse code machines lining the crates. He saw dirty faces peering suspiciously at him from behind makeshift cubicles of boards and boxes. They relaxed when they saw Catherine._

_"We're under my house or at least what's left of it," Catherine whispered as she pointed to the padding around the corners and cracks. "Sound proofed too. Ferretti had the entrance hidden behind the destroyed bunker. The guards don't bother checking the bombed buildings so they don't see the grating."_

_"For now," John said in a low voice._

_"John—"_

_"I don't like it." He ignored Dan's sigh as he helped his brother down on a bed. He heard Catherine jerk the dirty curtain behind them to give them some privacy, although the moth eaten fabric wasn't enough to even conceal the shadows. "Maybe you should have stayed back on base instead."_

_"You know that's not possible," Dan reminded him. "I want to. God, I hate to put Catherine in such a position by having them take me in—"_

_"It's no bother at all, Dan." Catherine sat down on the lumpy mattress beside the young man. She smiled at John, but it faded at his scowl. She continued in a bright voice, anyway. "From what George has been telling me, it was getting too cold there for you, anyway, right?"_

_"They're running out of fuel," Dan whispered as he struggled to sit up. "Until they can get more, track down where the naquada ore was being shipped and intercept them, the priority has to be for the Stargate and the dampeners."_

_"Dan."_

_The young man tilted his head towards John and shook his head. _

_"I would do the same." He smiled sadly at Catherine. "Besides, I can help out with the translations from this end; a lot faster than waiting for someone to find a Stargate to toss them through to us. I could work on the first batch when Simmons brings them over." Sightless eyes closed as he fumbled around his parka, pulling out a stone tablet. He touched the cool surface of the tablet to assure himself of its presence. _

_"Just get me the stuff, and I'll do what I can."_

_"Daniel—" Catherine's eyes glistened brightly. _

_John cleared his throat. The woman, taking the hint, wisely stepped out of the area, the curtain fluttering behind her._

_"I might not be able to get away to check on you, Danny."_

_"I'll be fine."_

_You'd better be, John thought. He knelt beside the bed and touched Dan's right hand. The young man gave a weak grin as he squeezed his brother's fingers._

_"You…you just be safe…we'll talk about this impulsive streak of yours when this is all over." Dan shook a finger at his general direction, pretending to be mad. "Watch your back. Return home if it gets squirrelly. And duck, please? Stay in one piece?"_

_"Sure." John was willing to promise anything._

_"If…If you hear anything…anything about Mom…or Dad, or S—""_

_"I'll send word to have them pass it to you," John swore. "Or I'll come here myself to tell you."_

_"No." Dan's hand gripped John's tighter. "No, they may notice. Or realize there's a faction here they missed during the cleansing strike."_

_"You need more of the stimulant," John reminded him._

_"Not for another month. I still have one dose." The young man patted his pocket where the small vial was nestled, wrapped carefully with several layers of old gauze. _

_"I just wish they could have gotten us more."_

_"They can't slip more past Ra's generals without them wondering why their supply was being depleted so fast. It's too big of a risk. Simmons and Franklin got caught last time trying to get them and the ore out themselves. Thank God they were able to get out of there alive. It's too risky, John. I can wait. Jacob said he would be able to slip more out next month without anyone suspecting."_

_John closed his eyes briefly. "I'll bring them over myself, Mutt."_

_"No, you won't."_

_"Yes, I will."_

_Dan bowed his head and shook his head. "You want to…but you won't." He leaned closer, towards John's voice. "You know you can't, John."_

_The man looked at Dan before sighing. His younger brother smiled briefly._

_"You know I'm right, John."_

_John wasn't convinced. Something inside was telling him to just grab the first set of symbols he could get and take them the hell out of here. Find a place somewhere and let the damn universe blow itself up._

_"They think I'm dead anyway. Ra wasn't expecting me to survive this long when he sent me back to you. It's been over a year now. He thinks he's rid of the last…scholar. I'm literally a dead guy foiling his plans every chance I get," Dan chuckled, although it didn't sound like he was joking._

_He didn't think it was funny either. _

_"Hey." Dan reached out and touched his arm. _

_John swallowed and grated out, "Yeah." _

_"You don't come looking for me unless absolutely necessary, okay?"_

_John looked at the hand on his arm. It looked so pale, so fragile, the long fingertips bluish and trembling. He was almost afraid to take those fingers and give them a reassuring squeeze. But he did, only grasping them briefly before pulling back._

_"Okay."_

_Staying for only a few hours, John O'Neill left. He thought it was the hardest thing he had ever done, leaving his brother in the filthy bed with the pitiful gray curtain shielding his corner of shelter. The soldier kept telling himself he would be back soon, swipe some things for Dan to make him more comfortable. He had to tell himself several times this before he could even get off the bed and walk past the curtain._

_He didn't think it would be six months later before he could slip away unnoticed, then be standing there as survivors told him of Dan's capture or of his upcoming execution…_

"Captain?"

John didn't look up.

"We got you originating from P9H-521," Jack interrupted, trying to change the subject back to the question at hand.

"Is that what you guys call it?" the captain commented in a dull voice as he lifted his heavy head, pushing the memories back in his mind.

"You got through the Stargate from Cheyenne?"

John shook his head. "No. That was taken over by them. We—"

"Antarctica. The second gate," Sam guessed. John looked at her sideways. He didn't say anything. "Don't worry. We already know about it." She shared a wince with the colonel, "Although our first encounter with the second gate wasn't so pleasant." Carter shivered, the memory of the cold enough to give her chills.

"Your guys are hiding out there? The resistance?" Jack jumped in. He knew he'd guessed right when he saw the shoulders tense.

"I wouldn't know about that," John replied shortly, responding a little too quickly. "I came through the battleship."

"Battleship?" Sam looked over to the colonel with concern.

"It was over a planet called Chulak." John noticed their expressions. "What?"

"Teal'c's from Chulak."

John grunted. "I never met the guy. Took the symbols for this…this… P9H-521, gated over to there so we could punch the symbols for home and saw the second Stargate—"

"What?" Sam shot out of her seat. "A second Stargate? In the same room? How can that be?" she stammered.

John shrugged. "Beats the hell out of me. My brother is the geek, not me." He ran a hand through his hair, looking once more at the double doors. "They…thought he was dead, but…" His eyes burned once more. "Someone…told them…they took him before I could return…Ra was coming to do execute him in person as a show of dominance…I-I couldn't let that happen!"

The colonel looked at him steadily. "You didn't. He's here. Now. No one's going to execute him."

Mirrored brown eyes fixed with his, and Jack had the feeling this man was...judging him. He stared back, wondering briefly what John O'Neill saw in his expression.

"But that's not going to be any good now. Is it?" John replied softly. He kept his eyes on Jack. "'Cause if what you're telling me is true...He's still damned to die anyway. Can't stay here and can't send him home, right?"

No one had any answer for him.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

_The room was painfully bright. It reminded him of the emergency room back when John had broken his arm during the school playoffs. He supposed it was because the doctors and nurses needed to see, but it gave him the feeling of a specimen being pinned under that light._

_Or burned._

_Shifting slightly, Dan winced as he felt the chains on his ankles pinch, growing in tightness, discouraging movement on his part. Whatever they were made of, they changed each time he moved until his ankles swelled up with angry welts. He glared down at the gleaming black material, silently cursing their existence._

_He glanced around the chamber. It was the same one he was in before. When they had separated him from Sara and the others, the guards threw him in here, ignoring his demands to know where they were being taken—in both English and ancient Egyptian. Days went by where the only company he had were the slave girls combing his hair, bringing food to him like some damn pet. Then she came, all high and mighty, greedy smirk on her lips, hands running over him, making him feel sick and filthy. Calling him her Chosen one, her mate. _

_Before he broke free and blasted that stick weapon thing he took from the guards point blank to her chest._

_But now, he was caught and back here...again._

_He had to find a way out somehow! He had to warn John! Tell him not to go through with it! He couldn't just sit here while his parents and his brother were somewhere out there!_

_Ignoring the stabs of pain streaking up his legs, Dan struggled to move off the bed he was on…again._

_"Do they make you uncomfortable?"_

_Dan froze. That voice. It couldn't be! She was dead. He was sure of it! He'd killed her and tried to make his escape until the guards caught him again._

_Laughter filled the bright room, and he could hear small feet padding across the golden room. Squinting, he made out a petite figure and realized that it wasn't her. She was much taller than this person was, and her hair was red like blood, not the soft auburn brown this woman had. Of course it wasn't her. He'd killed her with her own personal guard's weapon the moment her back had been turned. He'd seen her blood spill out onto this very room, the creepy light in her eyes fading away. _

_Hope flared in his chest, and he looked around, relieved to see that there were no guards. They obviously thought the chains would be enough to hold him._

_"Please...before they return." Dan tried to slide off the satin covered bed again, but the chains bound him there. He pulled at them with his hands without any success. "Are you part of the—" He froze when he saw the glow in her eyes._

_"Part of what, our Chosen?"_

_Oh God. No. How could this be?_

_"Tell us, beautiful one. Who are you referring to?"_

_Dan just kept staring at her eyes. They were indeed glowing and dread crept up his body. The room was suddenly cold. So cold._

_"The rebellion?" Hands snaked forward to stroke his pale cheek. Dan flinched away._

_"The Tok'ra?" She paused, flesh tone lips pursing. "No...We would have felt its presence in you if it were so."_

_Who? Dan wondered briefly before he cringed back. That voice. Her words. It wasn't possible._

_Hathor was alive._

_It was her...in another face._

_"How?" Dan stammered, curiosity overriding his fear. "What...My God...what are you?"_

_She seemed pleased with the response and tilted her head back, eyes flaring as she smiled darkly. _

_"You are half correct, Chosen." _

_Hathor looked at him, a smirk on her lips, distorting the serene facade before him to the twisted lusty expression he saw on the other's face before he fired the staff weapon on it four times._

_"God? Yes..." She leaned forward, trapping her prisoner's head with both her hands, fingernails digging deep into his cheeks. Dan gasped at the pinch of pain and felt warm blood trickling down to his chin from thin gouges. _

_"And you will kneel before me yet."_

_"Never."_

_"Never is such a permanent word." The woman smiled at him as if he were a child. "Hathor is supreme, to rule by her pharaoh's side, but he does not please us all the time. You may have the honor of doing so."_

_Dan spat in her face._

_Snarling, she backhanded him, sending him reeling back to the bed. Dan gulped air as he struggled to sit up but felt a pressure on his chest stopping him._

_"You have dishonored us, robbed us of our body when you dared attack us, forcing us to use this new one, yet we offered mercy and power," Hathor hissed as she pressed one knee into his chest. Daniel coughed, spots dancing in his eyes. The woman was surprisingly strong. _

_"We deem you unworthy and sentence you to eternal hell. Perhaps you will provide some amusement to our pharaoh instead."_

_Dan struggled as he heard guards coming in. Strong arms grabbed his wrists, pinning them to the soft surface of the mattress, and he shouted out angrily at them, using both his language and theirs._

_Hathor snarled, furious to hear their language lashed back at them. "No one may dare speak the language of the gods! You will not think yourself so clever."_

_He felt something cold and small pressed firmly to the sides of his temples. Daniel tried to twist his head away from whatever it was, but another slap left him gasping for air. Cold as ice, the small devices stuck to his skin like adhesives. _

_When nothing happened, Daniel opened his eyes and found Hathor straddling him, looking down at him with a smirk. She opened one hand, revealing a large crystal centered at her palm, gold webbing wrapped around the hand like a glove. He stared at it as it began to glow. _

_Hathor leaned forward and whispered into his ears, her breath hot on his skin. "We will enjoy watching you writhe in pain before death finally comes to release you." _

_The objects at his temples began to pulse, and he could feel minuscule heat beginning to burn his skin. Frantically, he tried to pull his arms free to rip them off, but the guards just pressed down harder, laughing as his legs kicked out in the beginning thralls of agony._

_"Imagine our delight when we take your body to your brother, Daniel O'Neill, and have him learn that all his efforts to shield you from us were for naught. We savor the day Ra will present your corpse to him, our newest slave for the mines."_

_Dan couldn't answer. Every nerve in his body ignited, and his eyes blurred. It felt like needles stabbing unrelentless in his eyes, heat scalding every part of his flesh, devouring him eagerly, clawing him with sharp knives straight to his bones. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't speak. _

_All he could do was scream before one last jolt sent his world into total darkness._

"Doctor O'Neill?" A gentle hand on his forehead. It felt hot on his skin like a branding iron.

Dan moaned softly, his body begrudgingly responding to the call. He shifted his head a bit, jerking back when he felt the devices on his face, pressing down when he leaned too deeply into the softness of a pillow.

"Dan?"

Blinking, he saw a blurry face hovering over him, and he weakly smiled as he waited for the discs to spark back into life, concealing the sight away from him again. It wasn't that he could see. Dan knew it sometimes took a few seconds for the devices to take over, a cruel chance for him to see around him before shrouding him in darkness once more, but his apprehension grew when he saw short brown hair, the concerned face and—

The eyes.

_Oh God! No!_


	6. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FIVE**

Daniel picked at the chair's material, looking at the double doors leading outside where Jack and the others were. Jack had looked right at him when he'd tried to follow, giving him a silent warning to sit this one out, so he remained behind with Teal'c. The minutes rolled by, and Daniel glanced over back to the other doors.

Chewing thoughtfully on his lower lip, he mulled over the past day's events, a scant few hours that felt like days. Again and again, he could hear Captain O'Neill's voice. It stood out more than the cold brown eyes that always tried to look over his head. Daniel was certain he saw hate in those eyes. He shuddered.

He hadn't seen such spite since the time he first met Jack.

It's like déjà vu.

It was so long ago. He had almost forgotten how different both Jack and himself were before that mission. John's hostility was too abrupt a reminder of how lonely and desolate that piece of time was.

"Are you cold, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c inquired, still seated on top of the gurney, his shoulder bandaged.

"No," Daniel said simply, turning his eyes back to the closed off area where Janet was checking on—

_Me._

_Not me._ Daniel shook his head, berating himself. This alternate reality thing was getting confusing. He rested his chin on the back of the chair, arms wrapped around the back, his feet spinning his chair left and right slightly as he eyed the doors.

_Brothers. I really can't believe they're actually brothers. Jack looked like he was going to expire right then and there when Captain O'Neill told him. At least he wasn't married to Sam this time. Jack was beginning to wonder if it was some universal joke or if I was pulling his leg the first time I went through an alternate reality._

Daniel looked wistfully back at the double doors as if he could see the hallway outside.

_I wonder what that's like? I had foster brothers, but it's not like they were ready to take me to ballgames or anything. _

_I wonder if he had Lily?_

Daniel started, surprised at himself. He frowned slightly, wondering why the name popped up in his head.

_"He was really clumsy. I mean, I worry about him constantly." She fluttered her eyelashes as she strategically placed her hands on her hips. _

_The police officer's eyes, as expected, drifted down to where her hands rested. _

_"Come on, Danny." Daniel cringed, wishing the police officer was wide enough for him to hide behind. "Momma was so worried about you."_

_"You're not my mommy," Daniel blurted. "My mommy wouldn't take my books!"_

_"You see?" She sighed dramatically. "Bad enough my husband works every day. Poor man loves him like his own son. But to have this boy carrying such an attitude—"_

_"He's a drunk," Daniel whispered, his courage already half gone. He shrank when she turned towards him. _

_"Danny!" She looked shocked. "How could you say that about your father?" She reached out and grabbed him by the arm over the bruise on his arm, the one she gave him last night, squeezing as hard as possible before letting go. _

_Only when the door slammed shut did he look up and see the rage in her once pretty eyes before the hand flashed across his view._

"Teal'c," Daniel hedged as if he was unsure of what he was going to say. "Why...why do you think...some things happen the way they do?"

The Jaffa arched an eyebrow towards the young scientist. "In the past...I would have believed it to be the work of the gods."

"For all the...good things."

"No...for all the bad things as well, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c bowed his head slightly towards him as he remembered. "I once believed that in angering the gods, they punish us for our deeds quite harshly. And when we please them, they may grant us something good."

"Then...what you're saying here is...it's not the gods..." Daniel stopped, his back towards Teal'c, facing the double doors leading to the outside. "It's what we do that makes things the way they are. Something we do, something we say, something we...didn't do. Those things make our lives the way they are." He swallowed, offering a wan smile as he turned back to his friend.

"You are referring to your alternate self?" the Jaffa guessed.

Daniel shrugged as if he didn't care. "Just wondering how our reality could have been so different than theirs."

"You have joined the Stargate project, and I went against Apophis," Teal'c reminded him. "In turn, we have conquered this fate and avoided the invasions."

"Huh," Jackson grunted, sounding like he was agreeing. "I wasn't talking about..." His voice trailed off.

Teal'c studied his friend silently.

"Sorry..." Daniel shrugged casually. "I don't know where all this is coming from. I must be tired."

The Jaffa was about to speak when he heard the commotion inside the prep room. Before he could step down from the gurney, Daniel was already through the doors.

Coming to a complete stop, Daniel stared at the sight of Dan twisting away from Janet's hands, screaming as he kicked out, fists flying. The doctor was sent crashing to the floor.

"No...Hathor...keep away...**Keep away**!" Another fist, connecting with Daniel's temple, pushed his eyeglasses off, sending them scattering to the floor just under Teal'c's feet.

"Doctor O'Neill!" Daniel tried to calm the man down without any success. "Dan? It's okay…everything's okay…"

Eyes staring at everything, yet at nothing, he whipped his head towards the voice. "Who?"

"My name's Daniel Jackson, remember?"

"Ha—"

"No," Daniel stressed. His double had such a frightened look on his stark face that Daniel wondered if he looked like that when Jack came to see him in Mental Health. He focused back on Dan, who was trying his best to climb up the wall to escape. "She's not here. She's not."

"I saw her!" Dan's eyes, sightless, widened as his hand frantically waved towards the direction where Janet was before. "I saw her!"

Daniel turned stricken eyes towards the stunned doctor, swallowing. "Doctor Fraiser?" Janet stared back at him, her face white with the revelation. "No…not in this reality. Trust me. Hathor's dead here."

"Dead?"

Daniel squeezed the shoulder again. The man's hand automatically came up to cover it with one of his, and a strange look came across both of them when it happened.

Ignoring the weird sensation of having an outer body experience, the feel of what seemed like his own hand clutching to his, Daniel kept his voice steady and calm. "She's dead. Jack killed her." _He told me she was dead. She's not coming back._

"She was a bitch."

Daniel laughed nervously. "You could say that."

"I could think of something stronger, but we just met." Dan smiled briefly as he struggled to get up. He suddenly slumped forward just as John and the others burst through.

"Dan!" the captain exclaimed. He growled at the sight of the two Daniels and was about to pull Daniel's hands off his brother when Teal'c calmly stepped in between, giving Daniel enough time to lay the man down on the gurney and back away.

Jack had had enough of this. It irked him to see himself, while it wasn't really himself, looking at his friend with such scorn. He was this close to dragging John out to the hallway and letting him have it, although he had a feeling it would be too weird...having a fist fight with himself. So instead, he cleared his throat and focused on Fraiser.

"Doc? You okay?"

Janet rubbed at her bruise, her face pale, but Jack suspected it wasn't because of the injury. She got up with Sam's help and took a deep breath instead.

"Doctor O'Neill." She looked up, her mouth slightly opened. "He said I was Hathor in his world." Janet pinned her gaze to John now. "Is this true?"

Sighing, John went over to his brother. Every so often, the pale face would furrow in distress, caught in some memory or dream. He placed his hand on Dan's clammy forehead, and he watched as Dan sighed softly, drifting deeper into sleep.

"Captain?" Jack's solemn voice broke through his concentration.

"Yeah…" John eyed Daniel and wondered why he looked so pale, too.

"Hathor was Ra's consort. When he returned, he had first offered us maps of where the crypts were, saying they were tombs of visitors in the past. Sort of a way to…convince us that they were not the enemy…that they were here long before…"

"Mexico…" Daniel whispered.

The captain nodded wearily. "Yeah…Dan led the expedition. They never found anything. They found some sort of gold coffin—" He paused when he saw Daniel shakily sit down. "But it was empty. We figured grave robbers probably got to it first or something."

"Or something," Jack added darkly.

John blinked, wondering what that was all about. "When he was captured the first time, he told me she was the one deciding on who would be under Ra's command and hers. But I think, she's slowly building her own army." John's face darkened as he recalled. "She needed a new Pharaoh to go against Ra."

"And she chose Dan—your brother," Sam finished weakly, darting a concerned look to her friend.

Daniel swallowed visibly. "Did she…did Dan ever mention anything about a code…"

"Daniel, don't," Jack warned. His hand gripped Daniel's shoulder tight.

"It's okay, Jack." Daniel sat up straighter. "Did she try to…um…seduce—"

"Tried," John broke in harshly. "But he got away and killed her or at least he thought he did." The captain looked away for a moment, his eyes glued to a point beyond them. "Until then…we didn't really know what happened to these people…the ones Ra suddenly had, allied against us. We thought…we thought they had betrayed us."

_"She wouldn't do something like that!"_

_John felt like shaking his brother roughly by the shoulders, wishing he could shove the picture in front of Daniel's face. _

_"Dan…she did…and I saw her." John grabbed his wife's hand. "We both did." He ignored his mother's distraught face, her silent plea for him to drop this. Even Sara was shaking her head, choked with tears. _

_"No…"_

_"It was Sarah." John paused. "I'm sorry. She got on that battleship after the wave of death gliders took out the last artillery. It looks like she was leading the attack on their base."_

_"The resistance?" Mr. O'Neill asked his son. The shadows of the basement, where they hid did nothing to conceal the fear in the elder man's face. _

_"I don't know if any of the captured survivors were in the resistance, Dad. It's still a rumor. We don't know if there really was anyone left to fight the snakeheads. There was nothing left of that place. No one could have survived," John admitted. "I heard rumors about survivors from the first strike fleeing to California after Cheyenne Mountain was taken over, but where they could possibly go after that—"_

_"It wasn't her," Dan broke in. "It wasn't! It couldn't have been her! Sarah wouldn't—"_

_John whispered "I'm sorry" to his brother, feeling his brother drop down to a crate beside him and whispered another apology in his head as he made the decision to take the devil's deal. There was no resistance movement to help them here. John was going to have to protect his family. Alone._

"It's the Goa'uld," Teal'c said quietly. "They take over hosts and make use of their knowledge."

_And maybe that's how Dan was discovered_, John thought, one hand slipping back over his brother's shoulder as he nodded. "When I first got Dan back he told me about Hathor; how she was one person then suddenly…her." The captain glanced over to Fraiser. "Sorry…I meant the one in our reality."

The doctor bravely smiled and shrugged as if this piece of news didn't bother her, but her hands shook as she pulled out her stethoscope.

"I guess there are many possibilities out there, Captain O'Neill." Her hand hovered over Dan's forehead before she pulled it back. "And I take it I…I mean, Hathor…she was the one—"

"Yes." The captain eyed the others as he finished her thought. "Yes. She had those things implanted. Before I could—"

"You said before you were away," Jack interrupted. "Were you fighting the Goa'uld?"

"No, not in the beginning. It wasn't until I got Dan back from Ra that I joined up after his convincing." The soldier noticed the shocked looks on Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter's faces, and his temper flared. "I wasn't going to leave my family out to dry!"

"I understand." Daniel's quiet voice broke in before Jack could shoot back a reply. "Not everyone can fight a war, Jack." His eyes rested on John and then glanced over to Jack.

"Not everyone can be a hero, Colonel," John said, his voice harsh. He looked back at Fraiser, and he quieted. "Is he okay?"

Fraiser nodded. "He's exhausted. The shocks came directly from the devices themselves, and they settled back to a regular signal almost immediately after Teal'c got him out of the MRI room."

"J-john?"

Everyone nearly jumped at the whisper soft tone, and John was startled to see Daniel Jackson taking a step towards his brother before he could.

"Yeah," the captain just said, ignoring Doctor Jackson as he came up to the gurney.

"We have to g-go back…"

"You need to rest first," John soothed, stroking the thin hand.

"Ra…" The young man was too out of it to realize he had an audience.

"Shh…"

"No…he's coming back…only chance we got…"

"It's okay." John didn't turn around to look at the others. He watched his brother's pupils glaze over and knew the world had become dark again for him. "I promised you I would make sure the first face you saw was mine. I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing," Dan whispered as he felt himself being lifted. Sighing, he dropped his head against his brother's chest. "It's getting repetitive, John." Dan tilted his neck. "But you know I'm right. I have to go back."

_For more reasons than one, Mutt._

"We'll go back."

John looked up and stared at his brother's face on the other man. Daniel Jackson was observing the figure cradled protectively in his arms, a determined twist to his mouth, making him unexpectedly look older.

"You don't know what you're getting into," John warned, a strange panicking feeling fluttering in his chest. Why was he even concerned over this man? He wasn't Dan.

"I've been there before," Daniel said quietly. "I've seen the possibilities, Captain O'Neill."

"Not all of them."

"Why don't we get you guys some rooms before we start talking about this?" Jack jumped in, his voice slightly sharp. And John knew.

_This colonel was going to have a talk with this…Daniel Jackson._ John tried not to smile. Why did he have a feeling it wasn't going to work? Doctor Jackson was somehow going to get his way and go.

His smile faded. The idea didn't sound funny any more.

"One room would be fine, Colonel," John said, shoving the disturbing notion of Daniel running around in uniform to the back of his mind.

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_"Your brother is coming. I saw him enter the transport to get to this ship."_

_Dan shook his head and coughed. "No. You must be mistaken. John wouldn't do that. They wouldn't let him take that risk." The young man tried to prop himself up on an elbow, but he fell back, drained. _

_"He apparently did not let that stop him." The voice paused; a gentle hand stroked his cheek. Dan sighed deeply, leaning towards the hand for a moment, reveling in the friendly touch. _

_"Captain O'Neill knows about the execution, young Dan-yel."_

_Swallowing, Dan could only utter an "Oh God."_

_"The system lords saw your survival from the re'klya as an embarrassment to Ra. He would have never given you back to O'Neill if there'd been a doubt of your demise."_

_"I'm—" Daniel coughed again. "Too stubborn to die."_

_"Indeed."_

_"But that doesn't mean he'll come. He can't. They'll realize he's a spy and they'll—"_

_"Sh…He will be here, and you will go. The others must know. And they must get the key and find the other piece." _

_"I'll tell them. And I'll break the code. I know they'll act on what you've told me. I'll find the codes to Ra's chamber."_

_Soft kiss to his forehead. "I cannot go with you. I must stay with Jermak. This is our best opportunity. With Ra's secrets in our hands, we can crush him and his general in one swoop. Then your people will be free."_

_"Free," Dan choked. "God…I never thought it would be possible…never thought I would live to see the day."_

_"Shh." A hand squeezed his wrist. "Someone is coming."_

"Here you go, sir." Footsteps walking away, one set stopping suddenly.

"Thank you. This is fine."

Dan could hear his brother talking to someone.

"There's a change of clothes in the drawers. Jack said he'll get the cafeteria to bring up the same stuff you wanted last time."

"Thank you Doctor Jackson." John's voice was cold. Dan shivered and felt the arms supporting him tighten a bit.

"Ah…you're welcome…" the hesitant voice went on. "We'll help you, Captain O'Neill. This happened before. We won't let this go on in your world."

"You make a very generous promise, Doctor Jackson." For some reason, John's voice grew colder by a few degrees. "I suggest you do not make any promises until you know for sure what you're up against."

Awkward silence. Dan thought he could hear feet shuffling back a step.

"Well…if you need anything feel free to let any of us know."

"I will. Good night." A door clicked shut.

"John?" He lifted his head up sleepily and felt his brother grunt in surprise, the vibration rumbling against his cheek.

"You're awake," his brother said needlessly. "Hold on."

Dan could feel himself being carried over a short distance, swaying, swinging, and he sighed, relaxing as he trusted the arms bracing him to be friendly, not foe. Dan started when he felt soft covers around him as he was set on a surface.

The younger man shuffled a bit, hands automatically out to feel his surroundings. His palms met the wall that lined the side of the bed. Fingers tracing down, he was surprised to find no cold metal rails, which usually lined the beds he was in. Confused, he tilted his head up to John, his brow furrowed.

"Their VIP suite," John drawled as he pulled up the thick blankets over Dan.

"Oh." VIP room? Dan shook his head ruefully. This was certainty different than the quarters he'd been in. He took a sniff and grunted. There was no stench of iron, salty sweat, or sweet bile like odors of things let to rot to cover their hiding places. In fact, he thought he smelled flowers and fruit which surprised him.

John sat down on the bed himself in what space was left. Sitting there, he eyed Dan. "How you doing?"

"Okay." Dan felt a hand on his forehead. He allowed it to linger, letting John take comfort in doing something and continued on. "Remembering."

"Remembering?"

"What she said. About you coming to get me." Dan laughed wanly. "I didn't believe her at first."

John was relieved to find no fever. He grabbed a thin wrist, despite Dan's sighs and checked the pulse. Counting, John mentally cursed, his fingers curling around the limb as he didn't like what he found. He went on talking as if nothing was wrong. "Why were you so surprised?"

"Because it was a dangerous and stupid move. A big risk and did I mention it was a stupid move?" Dan replied in a tight voice.

John chuckled wryly. "You're welcome."

"Dammit, John! You can't go off running around doing as you please!" The young man tried to sit up as he yanked his hand away from the captain.

"Calm down. Don't try to get up. You should be resting." Dan pushed the hands away as he felt them pull the covers up to his chest.

"I'm always resting."

"Not enough," John said as he considered their new quarters.

Too tired, Dan just nodded and asked wearily. "W-what does it look like?"

"Well, there's your bed here by the corner, and it's pretty big. The size of yours, you know, when you graduated?"

"I remember."

"There's a dresser and a mirror on the other side of the room. A couple of chairs. Bunch of cabinets over there with a table. Nice stuff. Not as nice as that chest you brought back from your first trip to Egypt."

"That one's gone, you know," Dan said in a soft voice.

John paused. He cleared his throat, voice gruff. "I know."

"Is it still there? The house?" the young man asked as he sat back into the pillows.

"I don't know. Never checked since the commander approached me with her bright idea after I first got you back from Ra."

"You're still pissed."

John narrowed his eyes. "Damn right I am."

"They needed you. You were the best man for the job. No one suspected you."

"I should have been there to stop them from finding out you were still alive. Should have been there to stop them from taking you again. My family needed me. That's what makes my world go round, Danny."

"Nothing is ever that simple."

John crossed his arms, glaring at the closed door.

"It should be." John sighed. "No…you're right, though. I probably would have found some way to join up with them anyway. I don't think I could have continued doing the stuff I did on Abydos before turning a staff weapon on the other guards."

"They had no choice either," his brother reminded him. Dan bowed his head. "They must have felt like there was no going back at that point."

"A lot of guys I met in the mines thought it was the best way to spare their families," his brother said, sitting down beside him. The bed creaked under his weight. "We all thought it was a small price to pay for immunity, Mutt."

_"Wait here. Everything will be okay. John." Sara read the note with a trembling voice. "You don't think he went to join Charlie Kawalsky after all..." Her voice lowered. "With the resistance?"_

_Dan felt a lump in his throat. "I don't know. Charlie never said anything to me about it. I mean he hinted, but never asked me directly because I think John would have killed him—" He turned towards his parents, waving the note helplessly. "I don't know where he is."_

Dan swallowed. He didn't hear about John joining the mines until Ra's men caught him and his family. "I don't think so."

"Well, _I_ think so."

Dan leaned his head back into the pillow. He frowned, realizing the heavy weight he was cradling against his chest the whole time was missing. The tablet he'd escaped with, felt comforting, even though it was not the same device he often had. It provided distraction during those long nights alone wondering where the rest of his family was and praying John would be okay. To not have it with him made him feel even more lost in the darkness.

"They still got our stuff, John."

"I know."

"If only we had a few more of those. Swiped a few more. The stuff recorded on those things. The agendas, all those coordinates and maps—"

"Dan, will you stop worrying about it for now?"

"I can't! I keep thinking we're wasting time, sitting around in some god damn imitation of a hotel room while all hell is breaking loose back home! We're wasting time. I'm wasting time!"

"We're going back," John said softly.

"You don't sound like you really want to," Dan accused, no real anger in it.

"Maybe, but we really don't have a choice any more."

At Dan's curious look, John explained to him what might happen in just less than forty hours.

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Sam stared listlessly at the test tubes, the sticker reading "DJ2" labeling them. Vaguely, she wondered if the labels shouldn't read "DO2" instead for Daniel O'Neill.

_"...There are an infinite amount of variations diverging at every choice we make like...forks in the road."_

"Forks in the road," Sam murmured, wondering what road Dan O'Neill took that could have led him to such a disastrous path. She thought briefly about checking on Daniel. She had an urge to make sure he was well, that he was seeing okay.

Carter muttered to herself in disgust. Of course he could see. He wasn't suffering under the strange Goa'uld devices they had yet to find a weakness in. Daniel Jackson was not the one in need of Doctor Fraiser's medical help. It was Dan O'Neill.

"Did you say something?" Fraiser asked, her eyes glued to the eyedropper as she pulled out a slide. Carefully, she squeezed a few droplets of blood onto the plate and slid it under the microscope.

"Nothing," Sam murmured. "Are those Doctor O'Neill's samples?"

"Uh huh," the doctor replied in a distracted voice as she adjusted the lens and fiddled with the computer beside it. "I had a hard time getting it from him with his brother hovering. I took the samples after the MRI. I'm wondering about those discs. They threw off the machines with a frequency like a radio, but something like that shouldn't affect the body the way Captain O'Neill described." Her voice trailed off as she made some more adjustments to the equipment.

_"Actually, Major Carter just agreed with Doctor Carter. She never joined the military in her reality."_

Sam stared at the empty screen now, remembering the long hair. Doctor Carter? She fingered her own hair thoughtfully. It never occurred to her she had other choices.

"Oh my God."

Lifting her head, Sam saw Janet gaping at the screen. "What is it?"

Fraiser pointed to the monitor numbly. "Tell me what you see."

Getting off her seat, Carter checked the monitor. The red cells drifting about on the screen were recognizable. She'd done enough labs to know that was the blood sample.

What she didn't recognize were the small black circlets darting in and around the blood cells like bees, sometimes going in the opposite direction of flow.

Wait, she did recognize them. Sam gaped at the screen.

"Those...they're..."

"Nanocytes," Fraiser finished with a grim tone. "They're what's causing the damage not the devices. I'm guessing, the disks on Dan's head released these into his bloodstream and control them with a frequency. It's probably the same frequency which interfered with all our electronic equipment in the MRI room."

Sam sat down again. "Are they like what Colonel O'Neill had? The ones that made him age faster?"

"Almost. I have to run more tests, but they look more advanced as if—"

"Someone's been fine-tuning the nanocytes all this time," Carter murmured, rubbing her forehead. "And instead of some signal hidden in a statue, he's literally carrying it around in his head." She looked at the test tubes in the holder and all the DJ2 labels on them. "Can we block out the frequency?"

"I don't know." Janet looked at her pointedly. "I'm hoping you can tell me."

Carter sighed. "I can try. Maybe another frequency will block it out like white noise, but if I change the frequency inadvertently and it affects the commands the nanocytes are receiving—"

The doctor nodded, her face grim. "We could end up killing Doctor O'Neill instead."

"So he'll die either way. Just either earlier or later." Sam sighed once more. She rotated her shoulders, trying to physically ease off the pressuring responsibility so she wouldn't suffocate and choke. It didn't make her feel any better. "Damn."

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_"I'm sorry," he hiccuped as he saw the blurry figures standing there too afraid to approach him._

_"For what?" Jack's voice floated from somewhere. The drugs. Those damn drugs were making everything untouchable, unreachable, like a puzzle forever locked into place with no solutions or answers. _

_"For being a head case!" Daniel choked out, horrified to find the tears he was holding at bay gushing out in embarrassing streams down his face. Daniel wrapped his arms around himself to feel something around him besides the cold and the pricking sensation of insanity devouring him like a ravenous beast. _

Studying the tablet and stone found with the familiar strangers, Daniel was almost reluctant to take the devices into his hands.

Jackson shivered, wishing he dared ask Sam to run

another test to be sure they were okay.

_This is silly. Sam already checked them out. No booby-traps. No funny slimy things courtesy of Machello to make a person go nuts. Just an innocent looking tablet that probably holds all the knowledge of the Goa'uld. Just a slab of stone. A tablet I can't even come close to._

Daniel rubbed his face tiredly. His eyes felt like someone had poured sand into them. He hadn't made any progress at all. He wondered if maybe he should have joined Jack for some dinner after all. Jack asked him in an even voice to join him in the canteen. Jack heard every heated word from Captain John O'Neill when Daniel escorted the brothers to their room. He wasn't sure if the red face Jack wore was due to what the captain said or because of what he'd recklessly offered them. If General Hammond hadn't called the colonel to his office, Daniel was pretty sure he would be hearing a lot of Jack's…opinions right now.

The clock chimed the next hour, and Daniel jumped. He groaned when he realized it was just the clock. Glaring at it, he was half tempted to toss it out of his office.

"Stupid," Daniel muttered and stared at the tablet again. He was being ridiculous. He was wasting precious time. The two brothers didn't have much time left. A day had almost come and gone. He was just going to have to tough it out. Daniel took a deep breath, wiggled his fingers, and cautiously reached out for the—

"Daniel?"

"Argh!" Daniel shouted, startled. He stood up so abruptly, his chair clattered to the floor. Both him and the new visitor jumped as it crashed with a loud bang.

Sam grabbed him by the arm before he could trip over his own chair. "Whoa! You okay?"

"Fine." Daniel gave a weak grin as he fumbled getting his seat upright again. "I was trying to see…if…um…"

The major looked puzzled, but when she spied the tablet on the table, her eyes snapped back to Daniel.

"Oh, Daniel." Sam didn't mean for it to slip out and wished she'd kept her mouth shut when she saw Jackson's face still. A false mask of calm came over the youthful features of the archeologist as he composed himself. "I've checked them out myself. No traps. These aren't like the ones Machello made."

"I know." Daniel smiled tightly, making a show of taking them into his hands. But she saw the slight tremble on his fingers as he brushed across the smooth cold surface.

"Daniel—"

"I think they're similar to the ones in that statue we found on P3X-8596," he went on as if he didn't hear, pointing to the stones. "Maybe Machello was involved with the same project. Or maybe they've met up with him like we did."

"Could just be they use this a lot. Like everyday equipment as we would a watch or something," Carter pointed out.

"True." Daniel nodded wearily. "I'd better see if I can translate this. There's so much stored in here. And they wouldn't tell me what they were."

Daniel sighed. John looked more like he was going to hurl him out to the hallway head first. He wondered briefly if he should just ask Jack to do the questioning. Or maybe he should find a way to speak with his own counterpart privately.

Carter shrugged, keeping her voice casual. "I was in the labs before the colonel sent me down to see if you were going to grab something to eat."

Daniel looked up in surprise. "Jack's finished already?"

Sam tapped her watch. "It's been almost an hour, Daniel."

"It has?" Daniel checked at his own watch. He'd been sitting there staring at the tablet for an hour? Frowning, Daniel swore under his breath, not catching the startled look on Sam's face. "I didn't mean to…nuts…I'd better get started." He flipped through his notebook to the last page of observations and readjusted his glasses with an abrupt push of his finger.

"Daniel, it could wait for a bit more." Sam walked over and sat down on a seat behind him.

"No, it can't." Daniel yanked out a pencil from the mug at the corner of his desk. He scribbled notes, chewing on the tip of his pencil, frowning, as he realized none of the symbols really made any sense. He waved the stone over it and flickered in were sets of symbols, grouped in seven.

"Looks like Stargate addresses," Sam commented over his shoulder.

"Um hm," he just said, chewing on his pencil.

"That's what we saw before when they were taken. It even has the symbols for the last planet we were on. I couldn't recognize some of them though, and neither could Teal'c." Sam leaned closer, whispering "Have you spoken with them at all?"

Daniel stilled, slowly shook his head, keeping his eyes on the tablet instead.

"It's really weird to see them. I mean, they're almost an exact duplicate of you and the colonel, but you can see slight physical differences between you two and them, aside from Doctor O'Neill's devices. But with my counterpart, there were virtually no defining characteristics to separate her from me, yet she felt like a virtual stranger to me anyway."

Daniel grunted, not stopping his note taking. His pencil could be heard making faint scratching noises on the paper.

"Makes you kind of wonder what were the different factors in the timelines that would have altered our counterparts. I mean, for me, the one difference there was she didn't join the military..." Sam trailed off when she realized Daniel wasn't listening. She looked sadly at his bowed head. "Are you planning to talk to them at all later?"

Daniel shrugged. "Um." He swept the stone over the surface again and gawked at the new set. The constellation symbols flickered away and new icons appeared on the shiny black tablet. He waved the stone over again and more appeared. Carter leaned closer, practically out of her seat as she gawked at the new inscriptions.

"Holy Hannah."

"Um." Daniel's mumble was equally as impressed, his mouth slightly open, and he stopped chewing on the eraser tip. The symbols, the drawings were familiar, so familiar, he didn't even need to turn around to tell Carter what they were.

"Machello," Sam whispered, her eyes wide.


	7. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER SIX**

Jack O'Neill pursed his lips, surveying the two corridors that met at an intersecting corner in front of him. To his left, just further down, was where his double was, safely guarded within the VIP room with his brother. To his right, a certain young friend he had told explicitly to go downstairs and grab some chow. Not that he was surprised when the person didn't.

The colonel's frown deepened. He didn't like the way Daniel had looked as he left the room where John was. Hell, he didn't like the way his friend had looked during this whole mess.

Jack wondered when this déjà vu was going to end.

_"Is the mirror gone?" Daniel's flat voice sounded so loud in the room._

_Swinging left and right on his seat, Jack studied the slumped position sideways, Daniel's face hidden within the crook of an elbow. _

_"You don't look too happy about that."_

_"No more people popping in to tell us how the world was destroyed by the Goa'uld." Daniel turned his face until his cheek was pressed against his folded arms, his eyes staring blankly at the walls to his right. Jack now found himself staring at the back of his head. "No more having to save the world for them." _

_Daniel sighed low and sat up once again and spun his chair until he could see the observation window._

_"Why does it feel like we're abandoning them, Jack?" _

_"We have enough of our own problems to worry about, Daniel," Jack reminded his friend._

_"I know!" Daniel scrubbed his face with both hands tiredly. "We can't just turn away from these other possibilities."_

_"So you're saying we should drop everything and go around jumping into other dimensions just to play superhero?"_

_"No! I mean…Yes! I-I don't know!" Daniel got up from his chair, the furniture spinning wildly from the abrupt movement. "I don't want to see it happening again, watching all my friends get k—" Daniel paled. _

_Jack frowned. "But you have to be realistic. We can't save them all."_

_"Why not?" Daniel's voice dropped to a whisper. "Why did I ever go through that mirror?" mourned Daniel._

_"You came back, Daniel. You warned us about Apophis' plan to attack Earth," Jack pointed out. "You weren't exactly off on a vacation."_

_"And what about Sam? When her double came through?"_

_"We got rid of Apophis there too."_

_"But now we know there are more routes out there, many Earths run down by the Goa'uld, many more friends dead. Jack, how many do you think are out there praying for something, someone to help them?"_

_Jack didn't want to count. His throat went dry all of a sudden._

_"Sometimes…I just wish I'd never seen that stupid thing," Daniel whispered. "Not when I have to sit back while everywhere else is torn apart."_

_"Things," Jack nearly jumped when he heard the croak in his own voice, "things happen for a reason, Daniel."_

_"Oh?" Daniel stared right at Jack, blue eyes haunted; Jack felt his bones rattle with the chill._

_"Then can you tell me the reason, Jack?"_

_The colonel opened his mouth but closed it again when he couldn't. _

_Daniel looked very sad. His voice went lower, barely audible. "No. I didn't think so."_

_As Daniel left the room, Jack felt totally empty. For the first time since the mission, since they left Samantha O'Neill behind in her reality, he felt like they hadn't really won at all._

"Damn it," he muttered, his frown growing larger and larger, not noticing the passing soldiers veering away from him because of it. Jack scowled, glaring at the colored lines on the floor. One to the left. And one to the right.

_"Why does it feel like we're abandoning them, Jack?" _

O'Neill considered the right corridor thoughtfully. He could bet Daniel was still in his office, slouched over the damn tablet, desk piled high with dusty books, and dinner completely forgotten as usual.

Jack sighed and took a step towards the right corridor, wondering if he was going to have to drag the archeologist out by his ears. He doubted Carter was able to make any progress before.

He eyed the left corridor.

"Damn it," Jack muttered. General Hammond told Jack explicitly that the decision was up to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They might be forced to do nothing and just send the two visitors home.

Back to Ra.

Where they would be executed. Where Dan O'Neill would be executed.

But not his friend. Not Daniel Jackson.

_"It's like we're turning our backs on them."_

"Ah crap." Jack turned abruptly and headed down the left corridor.

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Teal'c was beginning to wonder why he'd volunteered to guard the room.

He'd seen the light under the door where Daniel Jackson worked. He'd walked in and saw the young human bent over the stone tablet confiscated from the two visitors. At first, Teal'c wanted to apologize for interrupting what was obviously important work. But then he'd paused when he realized the scholar was doing nothing more than looking at it.

Watching it.

In a dull, tired voice, Daniel Jackson said it was all right. He did not need Teal'c to stand over him. He needed to work. He was busy. Then his friend went back to studying the tablet at a wary distance. After a moment, when he realized Teal'c was still standing there, he repeated in a tight voice he was fine.

Teal'c had known this not to be true. Daniel Jackson often said he was fine when he was not. He told them he was fine when he came home after destroying the Hammer. He said he was fine when he returned from Mental Health after they had locked him up. Daniel Jackson said he didn't need their help or their protective hovering. Even when his wife died by Teal'c's hands, Daniel Jackson said he was fine.

The appearance of another Daniel Jackson signaled dark thoughts and hardships up ahead. Teal'c may have denounced Apophis as a god, but he still held many strong beliefs. Truly, certain things happened in the course of life for a purpose.

What purpose did John and Dan O'Neill's appearances offer?

"Teal'c?"

The Jaffa lifted his head and saw Colonel O'Neill standing before him. He tipped his head towards his comrade as a way of greeting. "O'Neill."

"Where're Riley and Hawkins?" O'Neill looked left and right, frowning when the assigned guards were nowhere in sight.

"I volunteered to stand guard during their shift a while."

O'Neill tilted his head, curious. "Oh?"

Suddenly, Teal'c felt flustered, an odd emotion itself for him. "I wished to help, O'Neill."

O'Neill stared at him, his brow furrowing. Then he asked in a quiet voice, "Daniel still in his office?"

The warrior nodded grimly.

"Damn it. I knew it," O'Neill hissed under his breath. "Look, I need to talk to these people in there. Well, maybe just Captain O'Neill." The colonel made a face when he said it. "Keep an eye on Doctor O'Neill, will ya?"

"I will keep—"

O'Neill waved his hands, rolling his eyes for some reason. "Yeah, yeah. You'll keep both eyes on him, I know. I'll be back soon, okay?"

Teal'c nodded again, arching an eyebrow.

The colonel stared at the door for a moment before knocking. At the muffled response, he walked in, leaving Teal'c behind to guard once again.

Jack saw Dan O'Neill sitting up in the bed, dressed in the same navy flightsuit as John, blankets tucked around him like a death shroud, he skidded to a halt.

And found himself at a loss for words.

"What do you want?" John O'Neill shifted slightly where he was sitting on the bed's edge until he was blocking Jack's view of the ailing man. The captain's muscles bunched visibly under the shirt as if getting ready to attack.

Jack blinked. He had noticed once or twice, him or Teal'c doing the very same thing. Hell, even Daniel had complained about it when he'd caught him doing it, but to see it in front of him, his own expression tossed back at him, was unnerving.

"Colonel O'Neill?" Dan's voice floated out from behind his brother. His drawn face turned, facing the direction of the door.

"Uh...how are the quarters?" Jack cringed inwardly at the opener.

"Fine," the captain replied brusquely. His voice softened though, as he waved towards a covered tray on the end table. "I appreciate you reminding the kitchen about the food."

"Great..." Dan joked weakly, "more oatmeal..." He weakly sat up straighter, smoothing out the blanket covering him with a pale hand.

"Well, would you rather I cook you something instead?" John returned, turning his head to look over his shoulder at his brother.

"That's okay...I've had your cooking..." He smiled wanly. "I'd rather eat charcoal."

"Hey," the two O'Neills blurted out. They started and looked at each other.

"Oh God," Dan chuckled, "you both suck in the culinary arts...I would have thought at least one Jonathan O'Neill knew how to boil an egg."

"Jack," he said suddenly. "You can call me Jack."

"Okay...Jack." Dan smiled when he heard his brother grumble.

"How come you never call me Jack?"

Dan shrugged, keeping his voice casual and light. "Because I don't want to call you Jack."

"Brat," John pretended to growl as he ruffled his brother's locks, leaning in close enough so Dan could swipe a punch at him.

"Jerk."

Jack coughed. He felt like an intruder, even when the faces before him were familiar.

"You aren't here to watch John be an asshole I take it," Dan murmured.

"No respect for your elders," the captain muttered, a smile tugging at his lips. He darkened when he faced Jack again. "What is it?"

Jack returned the glare, still puzzled over the captain's hostility. "Was wondering if I could have a word with you...about returning home."

John studied the colonel for a moment. He nodded. "Yeah. Us going back." The double's eyes narrowed. "What about it?"

"Could we talk outside?" Jack gestured towards the door.

The captain shook his head. "Anything you want to say, you can say in front of me and my brother, Colonel." John's voice was chilling.

"Hey..." Dan tugged at John's sleeve, pulling the captain's gaze towards him. "You guys are probably going to talk military stuff. Who has the bigger gun, top secret mumbo jumbo and all that crap. You know how much that jargon bores me. Go."

"But..."

"Go," Dan said firmly. "I'm going to rest for a while."

"I won't be long," John said, eyes darting over to Jack. Dan nodded; he didn't doubt this for a moment.

"I know." Dan leaned into his pillow, shooing his brother's hands away when he tried to pull the covers up. "Go. Get out of here already."

"You'll be okay while I'm gone?" John wasn't moving.

Dan sighed. He acted like it was an old argument. "What am I going to do? I'm not blowing up any kitchens. I'll be fine."

"Eh?" That came out before Jack could stop himself.

"Nine years old, boredom, two Twinkies and a blender. Don't ask," John muttered. "Mom had me cleaning that mess up for hours."

Dan smirked, looking oddly like Jack. "You have to admit...it was funny."

"Yeah, because you didn't have to clean it up!"

"That's why it was funny," Dan laughed out loud, and Jack jumped, startled to see the captain do the same, his smile broad and relaxed. Jack stared at them. The clear, deep laughter came easy, not forced. It rang strange in his ears. His heart clenched when he realized the Daniel Jackson in his reality never laughed like that, at least not in any times he could recall.

"I don't know how you'd wrapped her around your finger," John grumbled.

"That's because I was so damn cute," his brother teased, mouth crinkling into a smile.

Jack sensed it was an old joke the two brothers were sharing. The warmth of the moment was contagious, and he couldn't help but smile.

John shook his head ruefully, muttering something about him being the scapegoat as he got up. Turning, he saw Jack's lingering smile, and his faded.

"Go." Dan gave his brother a push with one hand.

The older sibling grumbled. "I'm going. I'm going." He got up reluctantly, eyes glued to Dan's face.

As if sensing this, the younger O'Neill sighed. "Colonel, will you just haul him out of here?"

"Fine, fine!" John threw up his hands. He sobered, stooping low to his brother's ear. Jack looked away, feeling like an intruder as he heard his counterpart whisper. "Don't go anywhere."

"...I won't."

"I'll bring him right back, Doctor O'Neill," Jack said quietly.

"Dan...you can call me Dan," Dan offered. He laughed weakly, the conversation already exhausting him. "Just...just don't call me Mutt. And don't ask!" he added hastily before Jack could inquire. "Long and stupid story."

"Wouldn't mind hearing it," the colonel murmured, finding himself smiling again, wondering if Daniel Jackson had something similar.

"We won't be here long enough to tell it," John interrupted coldly. "Shall we?" He stood by the door.

Again taken aback by the captain's abrupt swing of mood, Jack made no comment and just led the way down the hall, nodding to Teal'c as they left. He looked back as the door closed and saw Dan O'Neill still sitting there, making no move to settle down and rest.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

"How…?" Daniel stared at the script. "This looks like…I mean…"

"It is Machello's codes. I recognize that particular icon, Daniel," Sam said as she took the tablet from Daniel's numb fingers. She brushed her fingertips against the raised text.

He looked sideways over to the stone piece, biting his lower lip. "And we have no way of deciphering them."

Sam shook her head. "No. He died before he could give me the key. And I never was able to form some pattern." She brushed her hand across it again as if brushing away dirt. "I was thinking it might take me years before I could crack out the right permutations to translate this."

"We don't have years," Daniel pointed out.

"I know."

"Do you think…" Dan hedged, staring at the tablet's mysterious writing, "_they_ might know?"

"I don't know, Daniel. They did have it in their possession. They may have the key for it."

The archeologist fingered the artifact, turning it over slowly.

Sam looked at his bowed head and cleared her throat. "I could ask them if you want, Daniel," she offered.

Jackson gingerly touched the raised text. He wondered briefly what it must feel like, not being able to see them, to see the meanings materialize in one's mind, and unravel what time had buried.

"Daniel?"

"So." Daniel fingered the raised lettering. "We'll need to talk to him, then."

"You mean Captain O'Neill?"

The young man looked startled. "Um…yeah…him, too."

Sam studied him carefully, watching how he was turning the tablet around in his hands over and over again.

"You want me to talk to him, Daniel?" she asked again.

Daniel shook his head. "No, he might be more comfortable talking to me...myself," he sighed out loud as he found himself stumbling. He darted a look over to the major, shrugging sheepishly. "You know...my double."

Sam nodded. "It will feel strange, Daniel. It did for me when I was talking to myself."

Daniel shrugged. "Well, at least we don't need to be introduced, right?"

Chuckling, Carter smiled. "Right."

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

"Nice." John O'Neill stared out the observation window, watching a probe roll up the ramp toward the sparkling Stargate. Despite his words, the captain didn't look at all impressed with the towering black ring.

"You got me down here. So what do you want?" John asked in a tight voice. He glanced over his shoulder towards Jack, calculating him with narrowed eyes.

Jack scowled. "I was hoping you would tell me." He resisted crossing his arms, which John was doing, and it bothered him to think he was going to do the very same thing.

"What? I'm supposed to be grateful for all you've done and blurt out every secret I know?" John snorted, deliberately turning back to the window as if dismissing him. "I don't know what they teach you here but on my world, we take our shit to the grave." Just then the Stargate deactivated, and they were shrouded in darkness.

Jack stared at his own face angrily scowling back at him and breathed out sharply. "Damn, we're both stubborn, aren't we?"

Captain O'Neill grunted and went back to staring down at the embarkation room. His jaw clenched as he saw familiar people. People he'd buried in his world, standing there below him, joking, laughing, and talking among themselves, oblivious of their counterparts' miserable fates.

"We want to help, you know," Jack said quietly.

The other man laughed, his voice bitter. "Sure, that's why your general is locked in that room, talking to the goddamn red phone of his, right?"

Jack looked surprised.

"Come on!" John waved angrily towards the glass divider between the room and Hammond's office. "I seriously doubt he'll be willing to jump in and offer all his resources to save a world he knows nothing about!"

"And why not?" Jack returned. "We don't exactly run a tour group service! We go through that Stargate every day and—"

"Wave hello to every alien you see, make friends and leave!"

"That's not all we do!" snarled Jack. "We battle the Goa'uld." Jack stood there on the opposite side, caught in a feeling of looking in a mirror as he watched the face before him harden with anger.

"Oh yeah." The captain's tone held a bit of sarcasm. "I really see you doing hard battle, all nice and cushy with your infirmaries, your cafeteria, your god damn VIP rooms!" John thumped the table again. " Here I was thinking, scrounging around wrecked depots for weapons, leaving injured friends behind and stealing every scrap of supply we could was the way to go! We were going about this all wrong!"

"Look," Jack snapped back, "we're not criticizing what you had to do in order to survive over there! We're just trying to offer some help!"

"Oh really?" John's voice dropped abruptly a few degrees. "And what can you expect to do in forty eight hours?"

Jack stilled.

"Ah…there's the problem, huh?" The captain gestured towards the Stargate with an angry wave. "You guys, if you do go through the Stargate, wave your high tech guns and bombs around for two days and help us fight the good fight. Then what?" John pretended to look at an imaginary watch. "Oh, look at the time! Sorry, but we got to go. Cascading thing. You know how it is."

"We won't leave you guys hanging," Jack said tightly. "We'll think of something."

"Colonel, no offense," John laughed harshly, "we've been trying to think of something since the day that glowing eye bastard came to orbit!"

"There are allies we have who may exist over in your reality—"

John shook his head. "No one. Only the—" The captain stopped.

"You see?" Jack threw up his arms, exasperated, as his voice rose. "You stop every single time before you finish telling us what we need to know!"

"You don't need to know any—"

"Yes, we do, if we're to help you!"

John's temper flared. "We don't need your help."

Now it was Jack's turn to thump the table. The drinking glasses on it rattled. "Yes, you do!"

The two O'Neills glowered at each other silently.

Finally, Jack spoke up in a soft voice. "We do want to help."

"I don't think there's enough help in this lifetime to stop him," the captain murmured in as quiet a voice. He dropped his head a bit, looking old, worn, and tired. With a barely audible sigh, John sat down in reverse. "He's winning."

Jack looked stunned. "You don't know that for sure."

The captain tilted his head a bit and studied the man in front of him for a long moment. "Colonel O'Neill, how many friends did you have to leave behind?"

John's eyes were dark, narrowed as they studied Jack. "Fifteen, colonel. I've left behind fifteen so far." He pulled his gaze away from Jack and turned it towards the Stargate. His face, veiled in shadows, was unreadable. "Each one I said would not be a wasted death. Each one." The captain leaned forward in his seat, his shoulders slouching forward, elbows on the table.

"That was a year ago." John stared at his own reflection in the window. He could almost see the chain mail armor framing his body. "One year. Two years before that, I was just trying to stay alive, trying to keep Dan alive, and watching hope die with each friend I was forced to leave behind." The man rested his chin on his double fist. He swiveled around to the observation window.

Jack's throat went dry. "You can't give up now."

"I'm not. I'm being realistic. That's more than I can say about my brother," John laughed dryly. "He thinks there is a way."

"That's why he needs to go back?"

John's jaw clenched, not a single word coming out.

"You have to trust us!" Jack said heatedly. "You can't just stay tight lipped about this! We might be able to help, but not until you let us in on what's going on!"

"And what could you possibly offer a dying world, Colonel O'Neill?" John turned to look over his shoulder, his eyes brooding.

"We have allies...they may be the same on your—"

"And where were they when the Goa'uld attacked us?" The captain grunted as he turned back towards the window.

"You would need to contact them. The Asgards—"

"The who?" John spun around, confused.

Jack sighed. He kept forgetting his counterpart might not have ever encountered the same aliens as they did. Rubbing his face with his hands tiredly, he repeated it slowly. "The Asgards."

"Great. How many little green men are out there?" John muttered, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Actually, they're not."

The captain lifted his head, baffled.

Jack grinned crookedly. "They're gray. Roswell gray."

John sat back down on his seat again and clasped his hands together. Staring at the space between steepled fingers, John spoke up again in a low voice.

"These aliens...they're the good guys?"

"Yeah. Great guys. They sent Apophis running the last time we went visiting Alice-in-Wonderland style." Jack noted the unemotional look on his own...no...on John O'Neill's face. He would have thought that piece of news would have lightened the darkness lurking behind a twin pair of eyes.

"And where were they when Ra came?"

Jack sucked in his breath. "I don't know."

A sneer marred John's face as he swiveled his chair back to the window. He said nothing, but Jack could see the disgust on that face reflected off the glass.

"We have a way...of calculating the eighth chevron—"

"The Stargate only dials seven."

"Not to reach these guys."

John turned around again. "What?"

Shrugging, Jack tried to explain it. "Something to do with other dimensions or stuff like that. I don't know! That's Carter's field."

"Major Carter?" John appeared dubious.

"Yeah. She's the one who can explain all this and how to make it work." Jack scowled half-heartedly. "I get a headache just listening to her."

"Uh huh."

Jack sobered and looked right at his counterpart. "We can contact them and have them come play like the cavalry."

"You make it sound so simple, Colonel."

"Sometimes it is. That's the way it should be," Jack said quietly.

John snorted. "So what's your plan...Colonel?"

"I sell this to General Hammond, then we get you guys back home. Daniel will—"

"What? He's going?" The captain sat up straighter.

Jack darkened. "Of course he is. He's part of my team."

The other man's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why is he on your team? I thought you said he was a doctor of archeology."

"He is."

"He's not a soldier! He doesn't belong in the battlefield."

"I know he's not a soldier! But my team needs him there to—"

"Why in God's name do you want him out there in that shit!" John waved furiously towards the Stargate.

"I didn't force him! It was his choice. Always has been! Always will be!" Jack crossed his arms, wondering why the captain's vehement disapproval got his hackles up. "He's on _my_ team. _My_ reality. _My_ team."

"We don't need an archeologist on the team," the captain snarled.

It was like hearing himself with General West four years ago. Jack glared back. "That's for me to decide!"

"You're making a mistake. You don't need him there. This isn't some dig in the Yukon! This is war!" The captain bunched his hands to fists as his voice dropped to a snarl. "You're going to get him killed! He's going to get himself killed!"

"Daniel's been in enough firefights to know when to hang tough, when to snap back!"

John stared at him as if he'd gone mad. Mouth open for a moment, he snapped it shut and hissed between clenched teeth. "I don't want him on this team."

"Give me one good reason why?" Jack challenged. "He's staying," Jack said stiffly.

"Then you're an idiot," the captain growled and stomped out of the briefing room.

Jack stared at the empty spot the man had been standing before and swore softly. He hurried out to follow before the guards saw his double wandering around the base unescorted.

SG1SG1SG1

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SG1SG1SG1

"Um, Teal'c?" Daniel stood in front of the Jaffa with an unsure look on his face. "What are you doing here?"

"Keeping both eyes on Doctor O'Neill, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c told him in a solemn voice.

"What?" Daniel frowned and eyed the door warily. "Never mind. Is…uh…is Captain O'Neill in there as well?"

"He is with Colonel O'Neill."

"With Jack?" Daniel was baffled. "What for?"

"I do not know. Did you wish to speak to Captain O'Neill as well?"

Daniel studied the doorknob thoughtfully. "No…he'll be just fine. I just have a few questions, and it's probably better he's not here. I don't think he likes me very much."

The warrior tilted his head towards Daniel. "Perhaps you are mistaken. I would not believe there is true hostility in Captain O'Neill's intentions."

Daniel shrugged as if it didn't bother him, but Teal'c wasn't fooled. Daniel paused at the door, hand raised to knock when he lowered the hand. The Jaffa studied his friend for a moment.

"Perhaps it would be best if I assist Major Carter with the probes being sent back to the planet they originated on."

"Huh?" Daniel lifted his eyes.

"You would be more comfortable if I was not within listening distance, Daniel Jackson?"

Daniel shook his head, a slight flush across his cheeks. "No, I didn't say that. I'm just uneasy about going in there, that's all. I don't know why I feel...weird about talking to him."

"It is always unsettling to see what you could have been," the Jaffa said solemnly. Daniel nodded absently.

Daniel stared at the door. "Just can't stop wondering if-"

"If?"

"If the differences between our lives...was just from when Ra invaded Earth."

"They had become brothers," the Jaffa reminded him. Daniel broke his gaze from the doorway and looked over his shoulder to Teal'c.

"Yeah...there is that part."

"Perhaps you would feel more comfortable if I ask the two guards to return," Teal'c told him quietly. He studied Daniel for a long moment until he flushed and looked away.

"I don't mean to make it sound like—"

"It is all right, Daniel Jackson."

Daniel tried to smile again, but it faded as quickly as the attempt. So he just gazed up at him. "Thank you, Teal'c." He walked to the door and knocked once before hearing his own voice inviting him in.

Teal'c watched Daniel stand a few feet away from the bed, Dan O'Neill sitting up alerted by the newcomer. He quietly pulled the door closed, shutting his friend, and the one who looked like him, from his well meaning prying eyes.

The two men faced each other for a long moment.

"Um...hello..." Daniel shifted from foot to foot, hands in his pockets, the tablet weighing heavily in them. He looked back at the blank dull blue eyes, trying not to shiver at the image. "I...uh...don't know if you remember me from before."

"Hard to forget when someone looks like you," Dan interrupted in a light voice. "Are you looking for John?"

"No..." Daniel pulled the tablet out. "For you."

Tilting his head, Dan chewed his lower lip. Daniel still stood there, shuffling in place as he waited. "Me?" The double paused, then nodded. He struggled slowly and sat up higher. "Oh...Of course, you must have questions."

"Uh yeah...about the—"

O'Neill waved him over. "Over here. Over here. I'm not deaf yet, just blind, but it doesn't mean I like shouting across the room, for crying out loud! Sit down over here before I get whiplash." The double scowled with a mock frown.

Daniel blinked. The words threw him off for a second.

"Doctor Jackson?"

"Sorry...I'll sit over here." Daniel awkwardly brought a chair over to the bed and sat down. He fidgeted, wondering how to even begin. It was like seeing his clone again on Harlan's planet, the strange sense of dream and out of body.

"It's okay, you know," Dan spoke in a quiet voice, staring out to where he'd heard the chair dragged. "I know you must feel...weird...seeing all this." The sickly man shakily raised a hand and brushed back long bangs from the right side of his face, revealing the discs. "I get it all the time."

"I don't understand," Daniel said faintly, swallowing as he saw the tremors in the other man's fingers.

"Wondering when I'm going to drop off."

"D-drop off?" Daniel stared at the hands still shaking on the lap. Unable to stop himself, he pulled out his own and studied them.

"You know...drop off, kick the bucket, say the last goodbye, sayonara—"

"Doesn't that bother you?" Daniel blurted out.

The other man paused.

"You sound so nonchalant about it." Jackson shifted uneasily in his seat, peering at him with confusion.

"Would it help if I rant and weep?" Dan O'Neill countered. Getting no response, he sighed, sinking back against his pillow. "Look, it's done. There's nothing I can do except try and help take the bastard down."

"You will," Daniel cut in hastily. "There are allies we could ask in your reality who can assist. Your world...it won't be under Goa'uld reign for long."

"It sounds nice," O'Neill said in a soft voice. "It really does. And the more I hear it, the more I believe it." His voice grew firm as he squared back his shoulders. "But you're not here just to tell me this, right?"

Daniel looked back down at the tablet on his lap. "No...I'm not."

Nodding, Dan appeared thoughtful. "Questions. You said questions. I have a lot of those myself to ask you actually. I was hoping you would drop by sooner so we could talk."

"Uh..." Daniel wondered if he should even mention the fact his brother John probably would've slammed the door in his face. "I was...busy..."

"Trying to save the world, huh?" the other teased.

Daniel fidgeted and hedged. "You could say that."

Nodding again, Dan smiled briefly. "Well, how about I start asking the questions first, hm?"

"Sure." Daniel pulled out the tablet, wanting to hand it over to his double when he heard one barely audible word uttered.

"Lily."

The tablet fell out of nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor.

"W-what did you say?" Daniel stammered.

"Nothing...I guess that answered my question." O'Neill's voice was somber. He tilted his head towards the sound he heard. "Was that the tablet I had with me?"

"You can tell?"

Dan shrugged. "It has a certain...tone to it when it strikes a hard surface. Trust me, I dropped it many times myself." He lifted up his hands, showing the slight twitching his fingers made. "Thank God, it wasn't made of glass. The way my hands are, I'm dangerous around a china shop!"

Jackson laughed nervously.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," Dan said softly.

Daniel blinked again. "Huh?"

"That." The other man waved towards Daniel's direction. "That sound. The I-don't-know-what-to-say-around-the-sick-guy sound. I heard it enough on the base to know what it sounds like." He shook his head, his lips a thin line. "Stop acting as if I'm going to get all upset over the fact I'm dying."

Daniel bit his lower lip as he stooped and picked up the tablet. sat up straighter when he felt its familiar weight. A smile, as if greeting an old friend, graced his lips, and he tenderly traced the contours of the device.

"Do you have the reader?" Dan asked as his fingertips tapped along the now smooth surface.

Daniel wordlessly handed over the round stone. Then, wagging a finger at Daniel to tell him to come closer, Dan waved it over the tablet. Immediately, the same strange symbols appeared.

"I have yet to crack this," Dan said softly. His brow furrowed as he felt the strange patterns of script with slender fingers. "There's a set of codes hidden in here and some text, but I never got the opportunity to find out how to crack it."

"Where did you get this?" Jackson watched as the pale hands shook, the tablet unsteady in the other man's hold.

"A friend," Dan O'Neill said mysteriously. "It was hidden in the ship I was imprisoned in, by a former inmate. We got it out with some clue to a key to decipher it, but I really don't know if I can solve this in time."

Daniel stared as the symbols scrolled down, thousands of bizarre letters, taunting him with its riddle.

"Can I help?" Daniel asked. Dan stopped waving the stone, and the writing stilled in place.

"It's not from some ancient language, Doctor Jackson. It's a code."

"From Machello, I know," Daniel interrupted. The other sucked in his breath. "It's okay. I know about him. We've...met."

Dan leaned forward, grabbing his hand anxiously. "Is he here? Your version of Machello?"

"No, he isn't..." Daniel could still feel the ancient aches of an old body that was never his to begin with, his own stolen by Machello. He could still smell the medicines in the room he was in, the weary pain that made talking such agony as he tried to convince Jack and the others who he was, that Machello stole his body. It hurt so bad...so terribly, terribly bad…

"Doctor Jackson?" A thin hand shook his, and Daniel started.

"S-sorry..." Daniel rubbed his face. "Our encounter with him wasn't at first...friendly." The room was cold all of a sudden. "He...let's just say he took me hostage and used me to gain a bit of freedom."

"Oh." Dan released his hold and sat back. "Sorry to hear it."

"I can understand though," Daniel continued as he stared at the tablet. "He had great hatred for the Goa'uld. It can change people."_ I know it changed me._

"Sounds like the Machello I knew," O'Neill said softly.

"Was he the inmate?"

Pausing as if to think it over, Dan slowly nodded.

_He felt hands bracing him as he stumbled. The guards grunted, waiting as the stranger already occupying the cell helped him up once more. Then, they deliberately shoved both of them further into the cell, laughing as the two fell to the floor together. With a boom, the heavy metal door shut._

_"Hold still," a reed thin voice commanded and something was tilted to his lips. "She has told me it is time for another dose. This will last you until your friend can find another way to contact you again."_

_Recognizing the stimulant, Dan O'Neill drank it greedily. Gasping, he shakily wiped the corner of his mouth with his arm, feeling the iron bonds as they slid down his forearm._

_"Do you have a voice or was that taken away already before she could give you the neuar?"_

_Dan nodded his head, gathering his breath. "I...I can speak..."_

_The stranger grunted. "Good." His hands slipped away, and Dan could hear him move back. _

_"I've...I've never shared a cell before...they always had me in one alone," Dan felt the cold ground, and he realized that it was bare. No grating for his friend to slip in through at all. His heart sank. _

_"We are being moved. We are no longer in the auxiliary battleship. Hathor has decided to give us to Ra."_

_Dan froze._

_"Ra wanted his two prized toys to be displayed when he confers with his generals and allies."_

_"I'm not his toy!" Dan spat. He coughed, his outburst rough on his worn body._

_"Nor am I and yet I am chained, ready for execution."_

_Dan lifted his head._

_"You may be returned soon."_

_"What?"_

_The stranger paused. "Ra is not easily amused. After his way with you, he will either kill you or return you as per agreement. Most likely the latter. He will honor it for he still has uses for him."_

_"You mean my brother." Dan's voice was bitter. "I don't know where he is."_

_"Abydos, at the mines." _

_Dan shook his head, the place unfamiliar to him. _

_"It is not important. The main thing is, you must pass some knowledge to your rebellion friends."_

_"I'm not part of the resistance."_

_"I am not a spy. My usefulness to the fight against the Goa'uld grows short. But my inventions may assist in your kind's survival."_

_"Inventions?"_

_"To run the second Chaapa'ai." _

_The archeologist stiffened._

_"Ra does not know of its existence, but if you were to use it, he will sense it. I had a machine that can run on naquada and will shield its presence from the Goa'uld."_

_"You're saying—"_

_"Your friends can use the Stargate, find my inventions and fight Ra."_

_Dan's breathing quickened as his mind spun. Going back? He might see his brother again? And the Stargate? They could use the Stargate? He didn't know what to think. _

_The stranger came closer, and Dan jerked as he felt fingers prying his mouth open. Startled, he tried to move the hands away, unable to see what the man he thought of as friend was doing. Mumbling a protest, Dan felt something cold pressed against his back molar before a hiss was heard, and it pierced his tooth with an agonizing shock. He pushed the man away, shuffling until his back met the cold wall, and he clawed at the tooth desperately._

_"Do not fear. It is a map I have given you."_

_Dan spat, trying to see if it would come out. "Why...why did you do that?"_

_"You will survive longer than I. You need to give this to your friend so she may retrieve the reactor and shield for you."_

_"Why are you helping us?" Dan stopped trying to take it out. Heaving, he sat there, staring in the darkness, wishing he could see his ally's face._

_"Because the Goa'uld destroyed my life. Ra destroyed my life! I wanted to fight them, but they caught me before I could do enough!" The stranger's voice lowered to a sharp hiss. "What I gave you is a capsule that holds a map to where the reactor is plus the location of a special recorder." He paused. "All that I know of the mines' locations are in that recorder. Also the coordinates and the overseers' codes to enter their battleships are stored in it. There is also something else in there that may prove to be useful someday. It is coded. The key is hidden in another location. She knows where the key is. You have to find the recorder yourself."_

_O'Neill sat there absorbing this. "I...I don't even know your n-name," Dan managed._

_"I am called old man by the overseers, but once, I was called...Machello."_

"He was with me when we were transported to Ra's ship," Dan said softly. "He gave me the locations of a naquada device and this. The key." Dan lifted the tablet up. "But Ra got bored with me faster than I figured and returned me to John. I never got a chance to retrieve this until I was recaptured. John went against orders, got me out and we escaped with it and—" the man paused, a strange sad look coming over his face, and then shrugged. "The rest is history."

A chill coursed down Daniel's spine at the word "bored". "We...ran into where he was hiding, and he had coded information as well, but Sam...I mean, Major Carter never could figure it out."

"You probably need a key which I have right here in my hands. A friend found out it was located on the same ship I was in, and John got it out with me. With this," Dan waved at the tablet once more, "I might be able to unlock what Machello had to tell us when we find the recorder." The man sighed. "That is, if Sammy lets us go and try to find the recorder."

"Sammy?"

"Nice girl, iron will, pissed off at the Goa'ulds. Sammy." Dan shrugged, a fond smile on his lips. "She hates John. Thinks he's a renegade, unpredictable, but she likes me," the ailing scientist laughed softly.

Daniel looked at him funny. Sensing this, Dan waved at him exasperated.

"Come on, we're damn adorable, and you know it. God knows how many times I got away with something simply by pouting to Mom and she'd just throw up her hands, giving up."

"...That must have been...nice..." Daniel murmured.

Dan sobered. "Oh."

"Oh?"

"I keep forgetting," he sighed. "We do have one difference between us. I'm O'Neill...you're Jackson." Dan picked at his blanket. "Were you...were you ever in Chicago?"

"I don't remember," Daniel replied shortly. "It was so long ago."

"That's funny...I remember every single detail, even what I wore that day. She moved to Chicago, took me with her. They were bouncing from one place to another since her deadbeat husband kept losing jobs," O'Neill mused out loud. He rubbed his palms on his thighs, voice growing distant. "We were reporting to Ms. Brenner and left after that. She just left me there by the road, pissed off as hell. They wouldn't approve for more money in the checks, and of course I was the closest thing to her wrath so she-"

"We must have had different childhoods because I really don't remember Chicago at all!" Daniel snapped. He could almost feel a belt buckle swishing down dead center between his shoulder blades. Daniel stood up and paced. "I had a lot of foster parents. I was okay. Fine."

"Sure...you're the picture of joy," Dan whispered. Daniel stopped in his tracks.

Jackson shook his head. "I came here about the tablet."

"Just the tablet?"

Daniel nodded, jaw set. "Yes. That was all."

"So I guess reminiscing and comparing notes is a no go then, huh?" Dan smiled sadly.

"I—"

"What the hell is going on here?"

The two Daniels jumped at the roar. John O'Neill was standing there, the door flung open, his face beet red. Daniel automatically took a step back. The guards outside started, but they couldn't reach him in time as the man lunged forward and grabbed Daniel by the collar. Daniel made a strangled surprised sound as he felt himself lifted up an inch.

"What are you doing here?" John shouted.

Dan, not realizing what his brother was doing, frowned. "John, we were just talking about—"

"I don't want you here!" The captain shook Daniel violently.

"Hey!" Jack dashed in the room, breathless from trying to catch up. "Let go of him!"

"Captain O'Neill...please..." Daniel moved his hands over John's fists, his eyes glued to the man's face. "Whatever it is—"

"I said let him go!" Jack swore softly as he saw the guards whip out their guns.

At the clicks, Dan sat up in alarm. "John! What the hell are you doing?"

"Get him out of here. I don't want him near my brother or me!" John stared right at the captured archeologist and a strange look flickered across his face when he saw the fear in there due to him. He abruptly released his hold. Daniel staggered away and bumped into Jack, who automatically brought his hands up to steady his friend.

"Okay?" Jack asked gruffly, and Daniel mutely nodded. Reassured, Jack pinned his attention back at his counterpart, one hand waving the guards back. "What is it with you? If you've got some sort of problem—"

"Jack."

The colonel turned around. Daniel stood there, eyes on John like he understood, the sympathy clear on his face. John's eyes moved over his as well, and he snarled at the emotion he saw.

John looked like he was going to stalk over and repeat the performance when the guards tensed once again. "Leave my brother alone."

Jack whipped his head back, but stopped when Daniel gripped his shoulder.

"Jack. Don't."

"What? He just—"

"Let's just go. Doctor O'Neill needs his rest and I have some work to do..." Daniel glanced over to John again before looking away.

The colonel glared angrily at his counterpart. "If you think I'm just going to let this sl—"

"Jack, please." Daniel's words were whisper soft.

Jack glowered at his double before snorting. Pointing at John, he shook his finger at the captain. "I'm not done with you." He heard Dan O'Neill calling him back. He caught the tablet tossed at him and looked at it questioningly. But when he lifted his head to ask Daniel, he was gone.

"I'll deal with my brother, Colonel," Dan said in a tight voice, but his anger didn't seem to be directed at Jack. "Tell Doctor Jackson I'm really sorry about this."

John spun around. "You don't have to make any apologies for—"

"Shut up!" Dan shouted. He winced, one hand grabbing at his chest and gasped, doubling over with a grimace. Both Jack and John took a step forward, alarmed. "I'm fine," Dan grated out, waving his other hand. "I'm fine. Just let me have a _talk_ with my brother here. We'll work this out...whatever _this_ is..."

Jack winced. Somehow, he had a feeling this Daniel was not someone to piss off. He marveled at the idea, his anger momentarily forgotten. Nodding to the guards, Jack and the others slipped out, closing the door. As it clicked shut, he grimaced when he heard Dan O'Neill's voice rise.

"Are you out of your freaking mind?"

Jack winced. Yes sir, definitely some differences between his Daniel and Dan O'Neill.

"God damn, stupid, stubborn, son of a—"

Jack arched an eyebrow. "Where the hell did he learn that from?" he muttered. Holding the tablet, Jack eyed the corridors. Daniel's disappearance baffled him. Pursing his lips, Jack headed for Jackson's office, going down the hall. He could still hear the brothers arguing.


	8. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

Quickening his steps as if distance would calm Captain O'Neill, Daniel proceeded down the hall, suddenly unsure of the direction he should be taking. He could still see John O'Neill's face as he found him with his brother. He'd never seen that kind of wild eyed concern in anyone's eyes for him since his mother had found him tottering too close to the ancient well his father was excavating.

Daniel didn't understand at the time. He was only...four? Maybe five? But his mother appeared very scared as she crushed him in her arms, rocking him as she murmured how he shouldn't have gone beyond the barriers. How he shouldn't have snuck away from his tutor to go find them.

Daniel thought she was mad at him. And he whispered he was sorry. But he didn't understand.

Until they were gone. And no one ever gave him that same look ever again.

_Well...except for one_, Daniel thought, a dull ache in his chest as he thought of how he wouldn't get that same look of concern from Sha're again either. Then he remembered Jack barging in, looking like he was ready to rip his double's arms off. _Okay...maybe two_, he corrected himself. He stuck his hands in his pockets, deciding to wait in the office. He knew Jack was bound to show up there soon.

_Daniel sat there on the floor, chin on knees, the threadbare carpet scratching his legs where his shorts didn't cover too well. Hair tucked back behind his ears, he could hear them clearly without needing to press his head to the door. _

_"What about the last candidate?" _

_The man inside the office sighed, rummaged through a few more pages before he responded. "The usual. They wanted a younger kid, a baby to adopt. Fostering an older kid just wasn't what they originally wanted."_

_Closing his eyes, he tried not to sniff loudly. _

_"We'll send him to another foster housing and try again," his social worker thought out loud. Daniel tilted his head towards the door as he heard rustling of papers. "How about Spencer? Lily Spencer?"_

Sighing, he kept walking, arms crossed, his head bowed. Despite himself, he wondered what it would have been like to call Jack O'Neill his brother.

"Doctor Jackson?"

Raising his head, Daniel saw General Hammond a few feet away, frowning slightly at him.

"Are you alright there, son?" Hammond asked gently when he saw the half-dazed eyes blinking at him.

"What?" The archeologist started. "Me, sir?" He visibly straightened and nodded.

"Um...have you heard word?"

"About our guests?"

The archeologist nodded. General Hammond nodded slowly, his face decidedly unhappy. Daniel saw the expression and felt a chill going down his spine.

"Where's Colonel O'Neill?" the older man asked. "I would like to confer in the briefing room for this."

_Not good_, Daniel closed his eyes briefly. "He's talking with Captain O'Neill and his brother."

Hammond glanced down the hallway. "Everything okay?"

"Yes, sir."

Apparently the general didn't like that answer and repeated his question slowly. "I mean, Doctor, is everything okay with you two and our guests?"

Looking over his shoulder, Daniel didn't answer at first.

"Are we going to help them, sir?"

General Hammond blinked at the question. He cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable with the blue gaze now on him.

"Why don't we all meet at briefing to discuss this? If you see Colonel O'Neill, inform him as well for me, please." Unable to find anything more to say, Hammond nodded towards Jackson, turned on his heels and walked away, very aware of the eyes on his back.

"What did he say?"

Daniel turned and saw Jack standing there, his expression unreadable. He faced back to where the general was before.

"Daniel?"

Shrugging, pretending it didn't bother him, Daniel felt the irrepressible urge to go to his office, lock the door and sit there in the dark for a while.

"Hey." A hand clasped his shoulder, forcing him to look back at the colonel. Concern darkened the older man's eyes to almost pitch black as he studied Daniel carefully. "That bad?"

Daniel nodded numbly. "General Hammond wants to have a meeting right away."

The colonel exhaled sharply. "Shit."

SG1SG1SG1

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"Turn it to the right now. Let's see how bad the damage is...okay...so far so...damn...no, no...a little more to the right...let me see the inner rooms and see if they're still accessible...I...damn..." Carter murmured as she watched the monitors in the observation booth. Light from the active wormhole danced across her face like fireflies, yet it didn't bother her enough to flinch. Eyes glued to the screen, she jiggled the controls gripped within her loose fist, muttering to herself.

"A bit more to the right...no...too far..."

"Did you wish me to personally move the probe?" Teal'c inquired, puzzled by the strange mutterings. The Jaffa stood over her by the observation room, hands behind his back as he watched the monitors above him.

Carter flushed, grinning sheepishly over her shoulder at him. "No, no. I tend to talk to myself as I try to work with very uncooperative military equipment." With that, she returned her look at the screen, glaring at it as the probe refused to move any more. "Ah..." Teal'c nodded, understanding. "As does Daniel Jackson."

"What?" she blurted out. Twisting around again in her seat, she gawked at the alien. "Daniel?"

"Have you not noticed his lengthy conversations to himself whenever he examines a stone?" Teal'c returned.

"Rock," Sam pointed out with a grin.

"Artifact," the Jaffa countered, recalling how his friend always got upset when O'Neill made the constant error. Carter laughed, and he raised his eyebrow at the joke lost to him.

"Yeah. That." She turned back to her screen, feeling a bit better.

The probe's meters bounced up and down, its figures fluctuating constantly. She didn't like what it meant. Whatever was there, whatever had happened, was causing the room to be active again. Radiation was higher now in all scales, but thankfully none in dangerous levels. Yet.

In both realities they had encountered so far before this one came banging at their doorstep, the team was all there in some form. While she was relieved to know she was still part of the Stargate project in some status or another, her fate seemed to have lots of bumps and potholes mapped out.

_But my journey to end up here wasn't easy either. I took different choices, made different decisions to arrive at the point I am now_, Carter thought to herself as she tried reversing the probe's path and trying to turn it another angle. Sam couldn't help but wonder what choices would have made her Doctor Carter as her other counterparts were. Mentally shaking her head, Sam chided herself, telling herself she was drifting. Focusing back on the screen, she frowned as oddly shaped forms cluttered up the monitor's view. The light the probe provided wasn't strong enough.

"Damn," she grumbled when the probe couldn't move towards the one left behind. Something was blocking its way. She was forced to move it back towards the original trajectory- the DHD.

"Temperature's up a bit," she muttered as she wiggled the joystick, trying to get the probe to move. For some reason, it wouldn't go past the DHD. "Damn it."

"Perhaps it is too far for the probe to travel," the alien volunteered, but Carter shook her head.

"No. We had it go much further than that before." The woman punched a couple of keys, and the screen changed a bit as it magnified. A quick glance back at the readouts, and it still displayed the same figures. The mirror wall in front of the probe still shimmered in front of them. She snorted, frustrated. "I'm getting a slightly higher reading of radiation from the wall now, but I don't see any sign of damage or evidence that someone's been in there. And I don't see a mirror anywhere."

"Perhaps in the other rooms we have not had a chance to explore?"

Carter nodded as she tapped the keyboard. "Yeah...could be...I just..." The major thumped the console, not realizing the technicians next to her jumped. One grumbled to himself, hand rubbing his own area possessively, but with one look at the Jaffa's silent warning, the staff member slunk lower in his seat and shut up. "Why won't this thing move?" she fumed, unaware of the happenings over her head.

Noting the flicker of the chevrons, Teal'c knew the wormhole would vanish soon. The Stargate couldn't maintain the wormhole for too long. They would be forced to redial once more, a move he knew would make his comrade very unhappy. Waiting never made them happy, and their agitation often grew with the wait.

"Could there be debris obstructing its path due to the tremors we experienced before our departure?"

Carter brightened, sitting up straighter. "Could be." Her fingers clicked along the keyboard, and the image of the mirrored wall bobbed once. "Let's try backtracking our steps a foot or so and check out what's on the ground." Nodding to herself, she grabbed hold of the joystick and steered the MALP in reverse.

"Come on...come on..." she muttered, not realizing she'd gained an audience as other technicians crowded around her area of computers to watch. "Ah ha!" she crowed as she saw the dark mass of rubble directly in front of the probe's path. "You were right, Teal'c! There are a bunch of rocks in our way. Weird we didn't detect them before. Probably another aftershock loosened the ceiling. I'll just have it roll around and—"

"There is something underneath," Teal'c announced, and the rest of the group huddled closer to see.

"Where? Under the rub—oof!" She whirled around, glaring at the sheepish crowd, who had surged too close and pushed her. Shaking her head, she turned back to her computer and typed in a few commands. "Let me zero in and...do you mind?" she asked wryly as the reflections of the staff's curious faces blocked her view of the monitor.

Chastened, most of the group stepped back, edging away from the glaring Jaffa to look up at the monitors.

"Clearing up the image," Carter murmured, her attention back on the screen.

The black mass blurred as if covered by pixel blocks before clearing, zooming in on the only light spot she detected under the rubble.

"Shit," someone gasped softly and others stirred as the image came to focus on the overhead screens.

A human hand.

"Oh boy," Carter breathed as she saw the limb. The image blurred, struggling to maintain horizontal hold on the screen, making it look like it was moving, eerie to see. "How...that wasn't there before! They must have come after Captain O'Neill and his brother arrived here. But where?"

"What's that?" someone from the back of the crowd, pointed out another light spot behind the hand.

Zooming in, Sam targeted the area and she sucked in her breath when she saw it was a human head. Eyes gaping, face peering out of a mangled helmet, she saw the ink tattoo stamped clear on the forehead.

"Ra," Teal'c said in a deep, grim voice.

And the Stargate shut down, the room suddenly dark.

SG1SG1SG1

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"What?" Jack nearly got up from his seat.

Sighing, Hammond sternly looked at O'Neill until the colonel relented and sat back down. He had wanted to wait for the others to get here, but the colonel was practically vibrating with impatience while the archeologist was silent, brooding.

"Colonel O'Neill, the Secretary of State understands the position our guests are in, but he feels, as does the President, the risk to our reality would be far too great. If we were to go against Ra when he's apparently risen to power on their planet with an already tight rein, the odds would be against us." Hammond didn't look too happy about the verdict either. But he understood the line of reasoning behind it. He could see the fear of having another Ra coming over to their side, the slightest possibility was far too great than the morality of helping their fellow man.

"So...we're going to just send them back?"

O'Neill and the general turned to look at Daniel who had been quiet up until now. Daniel rested his elbows on the table, hands on his forehead as he stared at the shiny, polished wood of the table.

"We're just going to feed them, lend them a bed, then kick them out, back to that...that place." He spoke in a low flat voice.

Jack leaned over to his friend. "Daniel—"

Daniel's head shot up. "We can't send them back there without trying! They...they'll be killed! All those people—!"

"We'll be sending over supplies, anything they require, but that is all. We must find some way to shut that portal down permanently," General Hammond told him, his tone warning Daniel to calm down. "We can't take the chance, Doctor Jackson. There is too high a danger of Ra's people becoming aware of our reality, of a mirror bringing them here and wrecking chaos on our world."

"We may not have a choice now, sir," Carter's voice floated into the room.

The three men looked up. Carter and Teal'c stood by the doorway, having heard everything.

"Carter, what do you mean?" Jack didn't like the look on her face. She appeared stunned, either by what she'd heard or by whatever it was she was holding. Teal'c stood behind her, his face dark in the shadows, the eyes grim.

Sam waved a video tape in her hand, nodding towards the VCR by the general. The officer nodded, granting permission, and she hurried over, popping the tape in.

The television blinked once before it flickered to an image. Jack leaned forward to see, squinting as he saw it enlarge to focus on one particular spot. All he saw was the screen blur before enlarging another spot further, and Jack suddenly sat back in his seat, aghast. He heard Daniel suck in his breath as the image cleared, and the face solidified.

"Ra," Daniel whispered.

Hammond tore away from the view sharply. "What?"

"The tattoo." Daniel numbly pointed to the face, gaze glued to the monitor. "That's Ra's Jaffa."

Teal'c nodded gravely when Hammond glanced over to him for confirmation.

"Ra may already know about us," Sam said in a low voice. She watched as the men in the room stared at the monitor in shock. "They may have already come over to our reality."

Staring at the screen, Hammond cleared his throat. "Davis...get me the President."

Swallowing, the other man squeaked out, "Yes, sir."

Hammond swiveled in his seat and peered out the window. He closed his eyes briefly as he heard the announcement of them sending in another probe.

"Major Carter. How many hours left before Captain O'Neill and Doctor O'Neill begin to feel the effects of the entropic cascade effect?"

Sam checked her watch. "Um...about sixteen hours, sir."

"Sixteen hours," Hammond repeated in a flat voice. He studied the team's faces for a moment. "With this new piece of information," he said quietly, "you may ship off tomorrow to find out how many may have entered into our reality. Be prepared to do so at 1100 hours." He swiveled back to the screen, staring at the dead Jaffa's face.

"What about them?" Daniel asked insistently, leaning forward towards the general.

Exchanging a look with the colonel, Hammond cleared his throat. "Colonel O'Neill, let them know. We'll prepare a recon first before sending them back. You can plan for the agenda and be ready to ship out tomorrow afternoon." He gave his watch a fleeting glance. "You have a good few more hours to go. Get some rest, and be ready for tomorrow."

"General Hammond?" Davis stepped back into the room. "The President can speak with you now."

Studying the serious expressions of the SG-1 team, Hammond nodded absently. "Dismissed."

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

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_"You going to be okay here?"_

_Dan smiled briefly as he heard the concern, the reluctance. He also heard Sammy standing behind him._

_"He'll be fine, captain," she said. "Ra thinks he's dead or soon will be, otherwise he would have never agreed to release your brother to your care. If you don't head back now, we'll lose the window of opportunity." Sammy paused. "You have to find about those reactors, see if this tablet of his does exist. If what this Machello fellow says is true—"_

_"It's true," Dan reassured the woman. He could hear her sigh._

_"We don't know that." The woman paced in the room, her boots sounded heavy on the metal floor. "As for your friend, Doctor O'Neill, I very much doubt we'll be hearing from her again. You can't trust a Goa'uld no matter what they—"_

_"Do you mind?" John grated out._

_Dan frowned. _

_Footsteps faded away, and Dan knew she'd left. He sighed and shook his head._

_"What?"_

_The young man shrugged. "They're okay, John."_

_"They're underground rebels, barely together well enough to even hit a shack at this point. I don't know why I agreed to listen to you and come here." John sat down on the bunk and snorted. "Look at this! It's freezing in here! You're shaking like a leaf! They can't even run the beta Stargate more than twice a day with the juice they got!"_

_"But they will…soon…" Dan whispered. He heard John suck in his breath._

_"You don't know that for sure. Even if Jo…even if she's right, you don't know if you can trust her!"_

_"She's not like Ra or H-Hathor! She's a—"_

_"She's still a Goa'uld!"_

_"She's different!" Dan returned in a sharp voice. He coughed abruptly and felt a hand rubbing his back. "No. No, I'm okay."_

_"You're not okay."_

_"I am well enough to help out," Dan countered._

_"Help out in what?" John barked. "Don't tell me you're—"_

_"I can't read the glyphs, but they're recording surveillance, and I can translate those. And that tablet I described to you. If you can get one of those, I can record the correspondences and have the text raised so I can read them."_

_"Read?" John got up from his bunk, the bed jiggling a bit. "Read what? You're fucking bl—" Dan's face must have given away something because John's voice faded away._

_"I know," Dan whispered. He lifted his hands. "I can read them with these. I haven't lost that yet."_

_"You're not going to," John broke in harshly. He sighed, calming down._

_"Remember how you always had to follow me around? Even when I first tried to leave after graduation to join the air force!" The older man laughed softly. "There I was, my bags packed, and there you were, barely eleven in back of my car!" John made the bunk shake with his mirth. "I had to drive you back."_

_"You did anyway. Join up, I mean. Just later on," Dan reminded him sadly._

_"Later on…yeah…" The soldier sat down again. "Dan…that was a world I was very glad you never had to witness. But now—-"_

_"Wishing doesn't make things go away, John."_

_"Can't I at least hope for this to be over soon?"_

"I'm sorry, okay?" John repeated again. The older man sighed, the bed shifting under his weight. "Will you stop ignoring me? Geez, I'd rather you were yelling again, although that can't be too good for you either!"

Dan stirred out of his thoughts and tilted his head towards his brother's voice.

"Hey. Come on, Mutt." The older man touched his arm. "I don't know why you're so upset, but I'm sorry, alright?"

Crossing his arms on his lap, scowling, Dan countered, "I should be saying that to you."

John arched an eyebrow towards his brother, head cocked towards his direction. "Huh? What the hell are you talking about?"

"About I don't know why you're so upset." The scientist pursed his lips. "What do you have against Doctor Jackson anyway?"

"I don't have any problem with him," the captain replied in a stiff voice.

"Suuure...you greet all doctors by threatening bodily harm." Dan pretended to slap his forehead. "Silly me, I thought we usually shake hands and say hello!"

"You're being sarcastic," John grumbled.

"Ya think?" Dan drawled. He sat up higher on his bed, pushing up shakily with his hands.

The captain glared at his brother. "Very funny. He just rubs me the wrong way."

Dan sighed. "Damn it, John. Don't you think I know how much it bothers you? To see him the way he is? Healthy, able to see, not dying—"

"You're not dying!"

Dan tilted his head towards him. "I wasn't talking about me. I was talking about Daniel Jackson."

Glaring at the closed door, John sat there, his jaw clenching. Dan sighed once more and leaned back against the bed as well. The two brothers sat there in silence.

"It's not fair, you know."

Dan stirred, turning his head. John gazed back at him, sadly noting his brother was looking at a spot over his shoulder and not his face. He slid closer to his sibling, head pressing against his, his own eyes closing as he felt the cold metal discs touching his cheekbone.

The young brother shook his head, the devices brushing against John's face as he did. "It's not supposed to be."

"He's so..." John couldn't finish.

"Healthy?" Dan volunteered in a sad voice.

The captain shook his head. Dan felt the movement against his temple.

Dan tried again. "Alive?"

"No," John cut in harshly. He swallowed, looking at Dan out of the corner of his eye. "He looks like you."

Puzzled, Dan bit his lower lip, trying to understand. "Uh...that might be because he is in a sense—"

"No, no, no!" The captain threw up his hands, frustrated. "I don't know how to say it! I just...he looks like you! Like you...like you were before all this!"

"Oh..." Dan thought about it for a second. "You mean Colonel O'Neill doesn't carry him around like you do?"

John choked, sputtering. "That's not it!"

"I know it isn't." The other man smiled sadly. "I think I know what you mean, even if you can't figure out how to say it."

"You always do," John told him.

Nodding, Dan let his head fall back to the wall, his blank eyes up at the ceiling. "I know you think he looks like me, but he feels different, John."

"What do you mean?"

Dan shrugged. He ran his tongue over the lower lip, trying to find the words. "He...he feels...he feels like me...when I was six years old."

The captain peered at his brother with a frown. "How so?"

"Do you remember how I was then?" Dan asked softly.

Something dawned on John's face. "Yeah."

"Even when other families wouldn't adopt me...when my own grandfather wouldn't have a thing to do with me...I had your family."

"It's your family, too," John reminded him.

Dan nodded, a small smile on his lips. "Yeah...thank God for that." Dan wasn't surprised to hear his brother sigh before helping ease him back flat on the bed.

"Legs bad?" John asked in a gruff voice.

Dan mutely nodded and felt his brother checking his calves for cramps. He hissed as his brother found a particularly sore spot. His legs jerked automatically, but John stilled them with a hand on his knee.

"Try to stretch out," John said quietly. "I'll loosen them up, okay?"

"Sorr—" Dan started.

John cut him off. "Don't." He began massaging the knees beneath the blankets as Dan tried to not flinch at each stab of pain. Head turning to the wall, Dan hoped his face wasn't flushed with humiliation. He tried to think of something else, other than the fact that everything hurt.

"He had Lily, John." Dan whispered.

The hands stilled, and Dan could hear his brother suck in his breath. "You sure?"

"I can hear it in his voice." Dan winced as John continued with what he was doing. He tried wiggling his toes, but his calves clenched once more, and he cried out before he could stop it.

"Keep still. You're making it worse if you try moving so soon." Hands began pressing harder on his muscles, and Dan gritted his teeth.

John paused as he continued with the massage, keeping an eye on his brother, making sure it wasn't too painful. After a while, the captain had to ask. "What did he say about her?"

"Nothing." Dan laughed bitterly. "He claims he doesn't remember."

"That's messed up," the captain muttered, frowning.

The younger man turned his head, his cheek pressing on the pillow. "Tell me about it."

John studied his brother for a moment and looked at the closed door thoughtfully. "At least he's okay now."

Dan made no comment.

"I mean...look at his world...They beat Ra. I can't understand why Colonel O'Neill would even need to have him on the team at this point!" John withdrew his hands, fearing he might bunch them into fists and harm Dan. "The guy has him on his team, putting him right into the line of fire! If I were him—"

"If you were him, you would have him stay home or stay in the university and teach." Dan interrupted.

John pressed his lips to a thin line.

Dan shook his head, hand fumbling out to reach John. The older man leaned forward so his hand could land on his elbow. Dan squeezed.

"John, you're not Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson's not me." He pulled back, letting his arm drop to his sides. "Doctor Jackson may have some reason for joining this team. Something you and I don't know about. I trust Colonel O'Neill knows what he's doing."

"I don't," John muttered.

"You don't trust him because he's Colonel O'Neill or you don't trust him because he's like you?"

John started. "What?"

"You still feel like you're at fault."

John tore his eyes away from the sight of his brother lying there and stared at the carpet. He angrily noted it was new, very plush, dark blue, not stained with dirt, oil, blood—

"You still feel like you've got to make up for something—"

"Don't I?" John snarled, eyes on the carpet. He wanted to toss the tray of food by the bed on the floor, watch it be destroyed and be only a reminder of what it once was. He wanted to see the scales balance.

"No, you don't." Dan struggled to sit up. His hand sought out John and found his shoulder in his first try. "Ra does. Every Goa'uld bastard does but not you."

John clenched his fists in his lap. "I left you guys! I left you behind and let them find you! My family is out there either dead or alive, and all I can do is sit here, hoping to get back to a rag tag team who has a shit chance in hell of beating some demonic asshole who believes himself to be a god! I'm sitting here, all fine and dandy while you—" He couldn't finish it. He shut his eyes tightly, feeling his brother sitting up, murmuring in dismay at his words, but he couldn't get himself to stop. "I know none of this is Doctor Jackson's fault. I just...it's not fair that he gets to walk around here while you..."

"John—"

He shook his head, refusing to hear anything to soothe the burning in his chest. "I...don't hate him, Dan. I don't. I just don't want the other me to make the same mistake thinking he could protect Daniel Jackson all the time. Daniel's going to pay for that mistake!" John spun around and grabbed Dan desperately by the shoulders. "You already paid for it! I...it shouldn't happen again!"

"John—" Dan whispered and rested his forehead against John's shoulder.

Dan gulped down the lump in his throat. _What's going to happen to you when I die?_

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Rubbing his eyes, Daniel stretched out in his seat, arching his back until he could have sworn he heard something pop. Tiredly massaging the back of his neck with his hand, he continued watching the video Sam had made of the chamber from when they first arrived. He watched the tape with half open eyes, trying to find something. No mirror that would have transported him to a reality he hoped never to see again except when it returned to consume his usual nightmares.

_"The Jack O'Neill I know would do it!" Daniel stated, hoping to get a rise from this man, eyes so familiar, yet so different._

_Scarred, bitter face stared back at him with little emotion. "Well, apparently, you and I have never met!"_

A shiver went up his spine as cold eyes looked back at him, lacking the usual gruff concern Jack's eyes usually conveyed for anyone on his team. Daniel could only whisper "No...I guess not" and felt the room grow colder as the rumblings of the Goa'uld invasion shook the foundation underneath him.

Massaging his temples, Daniel wondered briefly if Dan O'Neill had felt this helpless, watching the Goa'uld rip through Earth's defenses, knowing everything, all the wonders of the Stargate, might have led up to this.

_"Chevron two engaged!"_

_Daniel stared at the Stargate, feet shifting nervously in place as the towering device took what seemed like forever to dial up. "Come on," he pleaded with the chevrons to hurry and lock. Turning to see if Langford was finished dialing, he looked across to Catherine and froze._

_The elderly woman stared at him through the observation window with clear concern for him, rather than her own plight. Then she got up as she must have heard something, spinning around to find Jaffa surrounding her, staff weapons lit up. She turned back towards him, her eyes holding an indefinable warning as her hand slammed down. It didn't look like farewell._

_It looked more like...good luck._

"Oh God," Daniel murmured and he wrapped arms around his middle, trying to instill some warmth. Why was it so cold? Maybe his office thermostat was broken—

"Thought maybe you might need this."

Daniel looked up and saw Jack leaning in the doorway of his office, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the tablet. Jack walked in without waiting for an invitation, as usual.

"You sort of left this with your twin, and I didn't get a chance to give it back to you before you flew out of that meeting faster than an F-14." Jack arched an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation.

"I needed to get some sense of the area so we know what to expect when we go," Daniel explained, evading the unspoken question. He fumbled clumsily for the remote, cringing inside as he knew how that must have looked and fast-forwarded the video. After a few moments of only seeing the mirrored reflection of themselves on the wall, he threw the remote down in disgust. "I just wish we'd had more time to explore the place. At least the inner rooms!"

Jack walked over, set down the tablet and took the remote, grunting when he saw the dent at the corner of the controls. "You know," he quipped in a light voice, shaking the remote at Daniel, "this thing costs us half the budget of the defense bill. And I doubt the President will be willing to write off another twenty thousand dollar hammer to replace this."

Daniel dropped his head in his hands and muttered, "So take it out of my salary."

Jack sighed and sat down on a stool, deliberately blocking the screen. Daniel raised his gaze before lowering it again. Jack looked right at the archeologist and decided to forego the cautious dancing around chitchat. "Daniel, what's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

Jack waved his hand around the room. "I mean, what are you getting so uptight about?"

"I take it that means you don't care about what happens to them then?" Jackson grated out.

Jack rolled his eyes. "No! I meant you seem to be taking it a little more...personally." Jack leaned forward, elbows on the table, as he studied his friend intently.

"Wouldn't you?" Daniel countered.

Jack blinked. Thinking for a moment, he nodded. "Okay, I admit, someone coming in looking like a sibling separated at birth asking for help would get my goat going, but—"

"That's not it." Daniel got up abruptly and headed for his bookcase. Fingers brushing across the numerous worn spines of texts, he paused, finding the volume he was searching for, but he didn't pull it out. Rather, he stared at it for the longest time, a wistful look in his eyes. The book, in its aging brown leather stood nestled in-between two gleaming, new books.

"Then what?"

Daniel shrugged, fingers still stroking the worn leathery surface of the tome. He glanced sideways at Jack, stiffening when he caught the intense study cast on him and averted his gaze back towards the shelves.

"Don't you wonder?" Daniel finally asked in a quiet voice.

Jack almost didn't hear the question. "Wonder?"

"About...them." Daniel waved his hand listlessly in the air. "About how they got to be the way they are now."

"They didn't go through the Stargate to stop Ra."

Daniel shook his head. "No, no. I don't mean...never mind." He dropped his head and stared at his bookcase, his heart heavy.

Exhaling through his nose, Jack rose, the stool screeching as it scraped across the floor, making Daniel look up. Jack stood next to the bookcase, noting his friend still hadn't taken the book off the shelf, still touching it as if doubting the decision to do so.

"You mean about how they became what we see now? Why we didn't turn out that way?" Jack hazarded a guess.

"Doesn't it make you pause to think where that turning point to make you him was?"

Jack tilted his head. "I don't understand."

Sighing, Daniel shook his head. "Doesn't it make you wonder about what you might have done differently or what went wrong?"

The colonel's face darkened. "Daniel, you forget. I'm Special Ops. I always wonder about what went wrong."

"I meant as in life in general."

Something clouded Jack's eyes. A young child's face floated in front of his sight. "I try not to."

Daniel glanced over to O'Neill, saw his expression, and knew. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"You didn't. Stuff like that comes up all on its own," Jack said shortly, ignoring the bitter taste in his mouth. _Like on every bright summer day._

Nodding absently, Daniel pulled out the book finally and skimmed through the aged pages. Engrossed in something written on the pages, he appeared to have forgotten he had an audience. Jack could see over his friend's shoulders, odd sketches throughout the book, notations scrawled in the margins, but before he could get a closer look, Daniel abruptly shut it with a snap. Daniel slipped it back in its place with great care, one finger lingering on the spine as if to brush some dirt or his prints off its worn, leathery surface. O'Neill fixed his gaze on the book, wondering what was so important about it. He stiffened when he saw the name "Jackson, M." etched in gold at the bottom.

Daniel coughed, drawing Jack's attention. "You think General Hammond's going to let us help them?"

"Doesn't look like we have a choice now," Jack pointed out. "Those dead guards tell us they're already here. We need to find out how many were there and if they all perished."

"Yeah...I guess." Something occurred to Daniel, and his eyes widened. "You don't really think there are some more out there?"

"I choose not to think about it yet. Not until I get all the facts. We go in, we get out, and then plan." Jack scowled as he went back to the desk and gestured towards the tablet. "What about this?"

"Oh...It's a key...to decipher something else. It also has a list of safe planets they obtained. They must have been using those to get to here." Daniel stayed where he was as the colonel picked up the device and examined it critically, squinting at the surface. "There're some symbols Sam said were similar to Machello's writings found on his devices, but it seems to be disjointed like it's missing something."

At the mention of Machello's name, Jack instinctively wanted to drop the tablet. He heard the hesitation in Daniel's words and knew this was yet another subject that haunted them but never discussed out in the open. It was an unspoken rule. If it was bad, they didn't talk about it...ever.

Jack's mouth soured. This was one of them. Looking down at the tablet in his hands, he thought of Daniel trapped in a dying man's body, his own stolen and wandering around the town. Then Daniel slowly succumbing to madness or so they thought before they found out it was more of Machello's doing, his legacy left behind after death.

O'Neill had an urge to smash the thing in his hands.

Daniel seemed to be remembering the same because he was not venturing any closer to the device. "Must be the recorder he was talking about them needing to find. They only have the key to decipher it."

"This?" Jack waved the reader and blinked as symbols came up. "Hey...I know this one..."

Daniel stood there, lingering in his safe corner by the shelves before finally coming over with some reluctance. He peered over Jack's arm and nodded. "Abydos," he said in a soft voice, leaning closer towards the tablet, greedily absorbing the sight of the seven symbols.

Jack berated himself for saying anything, hearing the longing in his friend's voice as if they were a long missed friend. Clearing his throat, he pointed to the lines of text below it. "There's a couple of symbols listed one by one, all by themselves here." He hovered the reader stone over it once more and started when he saw a familiar one. "Hey! I know this one, too! That's Earth!"

Daniel took the tablet from Jack, curious. "Looks like...hm," he touched the Earth chevron, and a new set of symbols came up. "I don't believe this," he murmured with awe. He lifted the tablet and showed it to Jack. "The seven symbols to get back to Earth, point of origin included!"

"Now that would have been useful when we were there the first time," Jack muttered with a mild frown. "It's like some Goa'uld GPS system."

Daniel eyed the tablet with growing interest. "I guess this is how they were able to figure out how to dial home without needing Doctor O'Neill to read a cartouche. It automatically does it for you."

"Carter will love this. Can you imagine her with it?" Jack quipped. He rolled his eyes dramatically. He could just see the major rambling on and on about how amazing it was, the tests she could run, the theories around it. "Man, I won't be able to get her to slow down to talk intelligently!"

The two men chuckled softly and the awkward feeling around the room dissipated a little. Daniel shook his head ruefully and sat down at his desk again. He studied the tablet and plucked out a pencil from his container.

Jack crossed his arms, glaring at his friend. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Trying to see if I can get some of these symbols down. See if they might have been to these places already. See if there are some we haven't gone to."

"Where Skaara and that kid might be?" Jack asked softly.

Daniel lifted his head, pencil inches from his notebook. He stared at the stilled video blankly as if he was seeing something else. "He's never met Skaara. Or even Sha're, Jack. He never knew her, fell in love with her only to...llose her. He's never been to Abydos at all. Do you suppose he was better off?"

"Do you?" Jack asked in a serious voice.

Casting his eyes on the hastily scrawled notes, Daniel shrugged. "I don't know. I mean...they would have remained slaves, I guess, had they never met us. Sha're would have never become a host to Amonet and Skaara..." His shoulders slumped, face weary and drawn. "How do you decide on the lesser of two evils, Jack?"

"You can't. Sometimes the decision is made for you." Jack scanned his friend carefully. "And I think you're wondering if you would have been better off not knowing her than losing her."

Daniel fingered the pencil, rolling it between his index and thumb, eyes downcast. "I miss her," he whispered so softly, Jack barely heard him.

"I know." Jack nodded sadly. He could see his friend's eyes glisten as he cast his sight towards his bookcase once more, targeting now a small earthen pottery. He remembered Daniel mentioning it was from Abydos, and he suspected he also knew who might have made that particular piece.

"I always wonder...what if I had left the Stargate buried?" Daniel murmured, his hands reaching and gripping the tablet. "If I had only left it under the rubble. There were so many things I could have done to stop it from happening...so many choices..." He his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, lines deep in his forehead as he sighed deeply.

Jack knew no matter what he said, Daniel would still drown himself in the shadows of his past. The remorse, the look of utter lost bewilderment echoed the time he found Daniel standing by the corridor when they got back from Abydos after Apophis took her.

"Guess I can't convince you to head down to the canteen for a bite to eat first, huh?" Jack asked softly, checking his watch and noting it was past nine already.

"I will in a minute. I want to see if I can making any headway at all on this," Daniel muttered, straightening up as his eyes quickly glanced over the symbols.

The colonel folded his arms in front of him, standing over Daniel's slouched posture, waiting with rare patience for a few minutes. Jack shook his head finally, amused when the young man didn't even realize he was hovering over him like a giant oak. "Will you at least remember to hit the bunks for some shut eye?" he griped over Jackson's bowed head.

Daniel nodded, and Jack rolled his eyes.

"I'm going to head back to our visitors and let them know what's going on." The colonel pointed to the hallway, making as if he was leaving.

"Um hm," Daniel said, already engrossed in the strange symbols going by.

"You'll go get some rest, all right? Need you alert for the mission if it's a go."

"Uh huh," Daniel murmured as he flipped to the next clean page. Quickly the page filled up with more notes.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I was also thinking of marrying Carter and running off to Nox world and getting hitched there. Wanted you to preside over the ceremony in your birthday suit. Then have Teal'c sing all of Don Ho's best hits."

"Mm...okay," Daniel mumbled, nodding as he scribbled something down.

Jack rolled his eyes. He'd better just set the alarm for four and check on him again instead. "Never mind, Jackson. Say good night, Danny."

"Night," Daniel just nodded once more, not realizing the colonel had already left.


	9. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

_The corridors looked empty. _

_John peered down the corner, then jerked his head back as he saw the Jaffa marching by the adjacent hall, disappearing behind gilded walls. _

_"Well?" Frank Cromwell hissed as he fumbled with the 'borrowed' priest's robe. The colonel swore softly as he struggled to put on the heavy robe, grimacing as he jammed his feet in the boots. _

_John shrugged, the heavy armor he wore over his jumpsuit rose with his shoulder. "They're switching guards."_

_The other soldier stopped, one arm through a sleeve, eyes wide. "Again?" He frowned at the news. "Didn't they just cycle out a few hours ago?" _

_"I don't know," John muttered, not really bothered by the idea of a wrench in his plans. He'd be damned if he left empty handed._

_Frank studied his friend for a moment as he wiped off the face paint and pulled out a black pencil. "Commander could be right. This may be a trap." _

_"Doesn't matter. If she thinks she can even order me to stay put and not do anything—" John said curtly. He glared at his comrade. "You want out? You can use the gate behind you."_

_Cromwell lifted his hands. "Hey, hey. I didn't say anything about wanting out. Your brother's a good friend of mine, too. Any kid who could harass non-stop for two months about you still being alive in Iraq and actually piss off this stubborn old man enough to go and find out is okay in my book." The soldier double-checked his sidearm, counting how many clips he had to spare. He shrugged casually and quipped, "And deserves at least the minimum of one suicidal mission."_

_John looked over to him, a sad smile on his lips. "Frank, I—"_

_"Besides," Cromwell went on, "if I'm gonna get court martialed, I might as well have the company of you two jokers when that happens, right?" He waggled his eyebrows at John._

_"They can't, remember?" John reminded him with a snort. "Can't court martial me. Worst they can do is have the commander yell at me a lot." His eyes narrowed. "I'm not part of the military now. I'm one of them," John spat as he heard more Jaffa in the distance, marching further down._

_"A damn shame, too, if you ask me. You could have your own team. We really could have used a few more crazy people like you. But I guess it worked out better this way with you_ _on the inside," Cromwell muttered. He fumbled around the pack they'd brought with them and arched an eyebrow when he pulled out a long string of grenades. "Uh...isn't this a little too much?"_

_John grunted, barely giving the explosives a second glance. "You want me to leave some behind to conserve?"_

_"Oh no, no! This is fine." Cromwell divided the lot between them. He nudged O'Neill, waving the black pencil. "Hey, you know how to write this shit better than me."_

_John grunted and took the pencil from the colonel. Quickly, he drew out a similar tattoo as the dead priest's on Frank's forehead._

_"Well?" Cromwell quipped, grinning crookedly. The colonel struck a mock pose, pulling back his graying hair from his forehead. "How do I look?"_

_"Gorgeous," John shot back, rolling his eyes before pressing a button on the back of his collar. The helmet morphed, covering his face immediately to the shape of a metallic hawk._

_Cromwell stared at him for a moment. "That still gives me the creeps." He nodded towards John, now in his Jaffa uniform, before flipping up the hood to conceal his pale features._

_"Ready?" the colonel asked._

_John didn't answer from inside his helmet, but he gave a thumbs up. _

_"Okay, let's do this." Cromwell slung his rifle over his shoulder, tucking it inside the folds of his robe and followed John out. _

_Passing few guards, who didn't even blink towards John and his friend, they arrived at the plain double doors almost an hour later. _

_He glanced nervously over his shoulder as he heard more Jaffa marching down the hallways, their metallic boots clomping on stone. "Here?" Cromwell whispered, pulling out the handwritten cloth map and examined the hastily written charcoal on woven cotton. He nodded as he drew his own conclusion. "Yep, she was right. Here. There will probably be guards inside. Should I—-" He started as John abruptly pushed the glyph to activate double doors. _

_Hundreds of cells with rusty criss-crossed bars sealing their openings, lined the concrete bricked walls on both sides, empty. John straightened his back and strode down the hallway, the layout similar to the prisons in Abydos, similar enough to give him a sense of déjà vu. However, there were no Abydonian miners, stupid enough to revolt against the overseers under Ra, rotting in these tight confinements. All the cells were empty._

_Save one._

_The Jaffa who stood guard at the end cell rose from his stool. "Chaka tel mak?" Were you sent by Seth, he asked, recognizing the general's Jaffa uniform. _

_"Shen chu," John shook his head, pretending he didn't understand the orders himself. "Tel mak nu Jaffa." _

_Shrugging, the Jaffa waved him ahead. As he passed the guard, he heard the Jaffa speak, suddenly realizing a priest was with him, tucked behind his frame, silent._

_"Hu me nuk tok?" the guard asked Cromwell, who shrugged, feigning ignorance. _

_John turned around and crept up to the guard._

_"Hu me nuk tok!" the Jaffa insisted, his eyes narrowing when his request for the colonel to drop his hood was denied. "Kree ch- urk!" _

_With a snap, John twisted the guard's neck and dully watched the body drop in front of him with little sound._

_Cromwell pulled down his hood, looking at John silently. He then stooped down and rummaged for the keys. He pulled out a thin black rod, which John snatched before he could even hand it over to him. The captain then spun on his heels and headed for the cell._

_When he waved the small device at the locks, the door flew open, and John strode in. He froze when he saw the curled-up figure hidden away from the only spot of light above the cell. Arms wrapped around himself, wearing only a ragged pair of pants, barefoot, the young man was oblivious to the scrutiny._

_"Danny," John croaked out._

_"Is he here?" Cromwell asked anxiously, rushing into the room. He skidded to a halt when he found him. He sucked in his breath. "Ah Christ. Is he—"_

_John dropped to his knees before his helmet even fully retracted. He made a choking sound as he gathered the crumpled figure on the damp floor and gently parted the long strands of hair. The young man's head fell back against his armor._

_The colonel slipped a hand under Dan's jaw and sighed in relief. "Pulse's okay. We can move—" He stopped when he saw the man stirring. "He's coming to."_

_"Dan? Hey, kiddo," John spoke softly as he saw his brother's face scrunch at the voice. "It's okay. I'm here. We're here to get you out—"_

_"No!" Dan's eyes shot open, but he couldn't see as his hands felt metal rather than cloth. "N-no!" Pushing John away feebly, the young man writhed in his grasp, terrified. "S-stay away! No m-more!"_

_"Dan, it's me. It's okay," John tried to reach his brother, holding him tightly, but Dan panicked. "Don't you hear me? It's me, Jo—"_

_"Your uniform!" Cromwell hissed. John looked up with stricken eyes. "Your uniform!"_

_John looked down at himself, shocked. "Oh God, I forgot—"_

_"Just hand him over to me. Wait 'til he regains his footing." Cromwell extended his arms out._

_John tightened his hold on his brother automatically at first, but at Dan's whimper, he choked and carefully shifted his brother over to Cromwell. _

_Once transferred, Dan calmed considerably. Blank gaze blinking in the darkness, the young man fidgeted._

_"Hey, Dan," Cromwell whispered, looking down at him with a sad smile. "How's it going?"_

_"F-frank?" Frail fingers traced the contours of the robe and followed up to his rough, stubbled face. _

_The colonel grinned wider. "Yeah."_

_Dan's hand dropped and he sighed. "I thought...I..." He stiffened. "Where's...is John here?"_

_"Next to you," John spoke up hoarsely. _

_Dan moaned. His head rolled against Cromwell's chest in despair. "T-trap...they're trying to find out...who's the spy in here...you can't..." The young man grasped John's hand. "Go...if you go now before anyone notices—"_

_"Too late," Cromwell told him. "We already got two priests and a guard dead. I think they'll notice."_

_"Besides," John cut in, his voice harsh. "I'm not leaving you here!" He grabbed both of Dan's wrists. "You're going to be executed in a few days. I won't allow that to happen!"_

_"Your friend mentioned this place to us. She was the one who got us the map," Cromwell added. "The key...Machello's key is somewhere in this ship."_

_"B-behind the Stargate. She hid it there after finding it. The last chevron brace. There's a false piece that opens," Dan said faintly. His hands reached out to John and stiffened when he felt the armor. He recoiled before remembering it was John. "S-sorry..."_

_"Don't be. I'll be glad to take this off myself soon," John hissed, looking down at his uniform with self-loathing. "But let's get you out of here first."_

_"And get the recorder," Frank reminded him._

_John blinked. "Yeah...that too." He paused before his brother, noting the minute tremors. "Think you can walk?"_

_Nodding, Dan struggled to sit up. "If I have to." He jumped when he felt coarse clothing tossed in his lap._

_"Wear this. It'll be easy to walk out of here with that." Cromwell said in a gruff voice. He helped Dan into the robes. Looking down, he swore softly when he saw the bare feet. "We don't have any shoes—"_

_"Doesn't matter," Dan insisted. He reached up and grasped John's arms, standing up shakily. _

_John wrapped an arm around the waist, realizing he could feel ribs under the robe, and he closed his eyes briefly. "Come on, lean against me. If we come across any guards, back away then."_

_Cromwell slipped out his weapon and whispered to John he was going to make sure the coast was clear. Footsteps faded away as the colonel went, leaving John alone with his brother._

_"The r-risk...if they caught you..."_

_John hauled Dan up higher and pressed his chin on top of his brother's head. "You really think I would leave you here with that bastard?" he whispered to the younger man. "I wouldn't have talked." _

_Shaking his head, Dan coughed. "No...they're using larvae...in the prisoners to extract information. And there was talk...about manipulating others as spies...some sort of...addiction...to control them."_

_"Shit."_

_Dan clutched his brother's arm desperately. "You could have chanced getting the key, but you shouldn't have—"_

_"Stop. It's been done already." John hissed._

_Sighing, Dan leaned against his arm. "I...I still think you shouldn't have...but thank you."_

_John nodded against his hair and felt Dan hold on tighter._

_Minutes later, they were forced to duck inside an empty room as a patrol strolled by. John eyed Dan, who was resting against Frank, face visibly pale even in the darkness of their hiding place. John motioned to Cromwell, pointing to his wrist. _

_Dan stirred. Cromwell_ _stooped down and whispered softly in his ear about waiting for the next shift change. Dan nodded tiredly._

_"I'll check the hallway," John whispered, activating his helmet again, and the hawk shaped hood came over to conceal his features once more. He nodded curtly as a stray attendant wandered by. Waiting a few minutes, he decided it was okay to continue and opened the door a slit to slip back in._

_"Still hurting?" He could hear Cromwell asking._

_Gasping as if holding his breath for so long, Dan barely managed a "Yes" before coughing. John froze. "Don't...don't tell John...please..."_

_Frank looked up and met John's gaze sadly. "Sure, kid. No problem. Think you can stand in a second?"_

_Dan moaned, hunching forward._

_"I...I don't think so..." the younger man whispered, but John heard it all. He clenched his fists._

_"Okay, okay," Frank soothed. "I've got some morphine...I can chance a dose for you, help you up on your feet 'til we get back on the base. How's that?" He glanced over to John, who couldn't stop himself from turning around again._

_"P-please..."_

_John wanted to scream, to groan, but he only closed his eyes briefly and turned around, his back to the door._

_"Okay...easy...I'm going to inject here, alright?"_

_Dan gasped as the needle found its mark, and he tried to choke back a whimper._

_"Let it work. Sh...That's it. Better?"_

_John couldn't hear Dan's reply, but it must have been satisfactory, because Cromwell grunted as he hauled his brother up to his feet. "Come on, your brother's signaling to leave."_

_Dan's hand found his elbow, and John only grunted. He wanted to scoop Dan up and just start running for the Stargate, take the symbols they got from their undercover ally and get the hell out of Dodge. But instead, he only squeezed Dan's fingers._

_"We're almost there," John whispered and Dan nodded before straightening with a hiss, swaying on his feet._

_Cromwell exchanged a look with John, the colonel appearing regretful, but John turned his gaze away. He didn't want to see it. The look of hopelessness in his former CO's weathered face made his heart drop to his feet. He didn't want to see it. Roughly, he yanked the hood back around his head. _

_"Jaffa! Tel nok tol!"_

_Both John and Dan stiffened when a guard shouted from a distance. The rest of the guards came running down the halls meters away._

_"Shit, let me guess—" Cromwell swore, spinning around. He yanked out his rifle, the robe whipping behind him with the smooth move. _

_"They found the dead guard," John said grimly._

_"You know the route better than me," Frank ordered as he grabbed Dan by the elbow. "Lead the way."_

_The three ran, Dan staggering under Frank's support, down the hallways until they blurred to golden streaks. In John's haste, he almost missed the flash of metal around the next corner before Cromwell shouted._

_"Watch it!" Frank warned, and John jerked back in time to see a black charred spot appear where he'd stood. The whine of another staff weapon made John whip around. _

_"Frank!" John shouted as he spun and fired off another round. The group of guards turning the corner jumped back, avoiding the gunfire._

_"Come on!" Cromwell pulled Dan closer to him and raced after John, flying around the next corner, forced to take another route when they heard more footsteps. He turned, tossed a grenade behind his shoulder before shouting to John, "Fire in the hole!"_

_The explosion rocked the place, and John nearly tripped before regaining his balance and spurring on. He spared a glance over his shoulder to check on them, and Cromwell shouted._

_"Watch it!" The colonel yanked out his rifle as John turned around and saw the Jaffa waiting a few feet away from the Stargate chamber. As the staff weapon fired, John fired his gun. The blast rang so loud, his ears trembled, and it sounded doubled._

_"Frank!" _

_No._

_John spun around and saw another line of guards at the other end of the hall, one of the guard's weapons still smoking, Dan on his knees fumbling around for his fallen friend who was inches away. _

_"Go." Cromwell wheezed as he struggled up. Hand to his chest, the other pushing Dan away, his voice garbled as blood bubbled out of his mouth._

_Frank's eyes already glazed with pain. John screamed in outrage before grabbing two grenades and tossing them over there as far as he could. The shock wave was staggering as the guards' staff weapons combined with his grenades and collapsed the walls. _

_"Come on," John grated as he yanked Dan to his feet and reached out for Frank._

_The colonel slapped his hand away. "No, there's no way you can carry us both."_

_"Frank!" Dan staggered as he tried to find Cromwell. "What are you trying to say, we can't—"_

_"That's it for me," the colonel wheezed as he tried to brush away the searching hands. "Get him out of here before you lose him again."_

_"I can walk. John can help you walk. We're almost there—"_

_"You can't carry us both, and he's the only one left! Go!" Cromwell shoved Dan away from him hard, ripped his dog tags off with one yank and tossed them over to John. He caught them easily and stared at his friend in dismay._

_Dan clawed at John's arm. "We can't—-"_

_"JUST GO!"_

_John grabbed Dan by the waist, lifting and hefting him over his shoulder. _

_"No! John, we can't leave him here!"_

_He spared one last look at pulling out a grenade and saw his friend salute him. He nodded numbly, unable to return the gesture. He tore his sight away when Frank got up on his feet as if drunk. With a scream from the bottom of his lungs, Colonel Frank Cromwell held two fistfuls of grenades and staggered down the hallway to the remaining guards. The Jaffa shouted something as they fired, and John thought he saw Frank's body jerk back, but then the colonel pressed on._

_Dan struggled to get his brother to let him go, legs dangling in front of John. "What's going on? John!"_

_Another explosion vibrated, and Dan screamed. "No! John! That wasn't—FRANK!"_

_John tightened his hold, running for the Stargate room as fast as he could. He kicked the doors down and froze when he saw the waiting Jaffa bursting out from the doors. He heard the whine of the staff weapon as he whipped out his rifle with one hand and heard the sizzle of a blast as he fired-_

"No!" John jerked. Heaving, he stared in the darkness, waiting for the screaming, the shooting to stop wailing in his head. When the sounds faded away, he was left with the frantic panting of his own panicked lungs.

And Dan's slow breathing.

_He's okay. He's fine. You got past the guards, got that damn key and got him out._ John lifted his eyes and watched his brother mumble something before turning on his side. He stared at his back silently.

"J-john?"

The soldier jumped. "I wake you?"

"No...been thinking of what Colonel O'Neill just said...about going back..." Dan sighed. "Those guards...you think they came right after us?"

"Could be," the older man admitted. "They were directly behind us when we were dialing the Giza."

"We led those monsters here," Dan whispered, not turning around.

John shook his head angrily. "No, we didn't."

"The bodies were there," his brother pointed out.

"We don't even know how _we_ got there!" The captain shot up from the floor. Something fell out of his pocket and landed on the carpet with a soft tinkle.

Dan lifted his head at the sound. As John picked up the soft leather pouch, the other man sank back down on his pillow, facing the wall again.

"Are Frank's in there?" he asked quietly.

Spilling the contents out onto his palm, John stared at the several dog tags, some bloody, some polished as if never worn. "Yeah." Carefully, he tucked them back in the pouch, drew up the string to close its mouth and slipped them into his pockets once more.

"We...we never should have left him," Dan choked out. "We left him there and—"

"Dan, Frank wouldn't have made it. I saw where that blast hit," the captain said quietly.

"How can I even repay something like that? Even equal to such a—"

"Stop it!" John hissed, shaking Dan. "He knew what he was doing! And so did I!"

Dan lay there, silent. The older man leaned closer, trying to get him to turn around.

"Come on...you said it yourself before...we need you to help us with their plans. You've been feeding info to their spy until Ra released you, translating the tapes, encrypting our transmissions to every freaking language you knew in that brain of yours so they couldn't crack them." John sat back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. "I wish you'd never got involved, but we couldn't have done half of what we've done without you." His voice hardened. "And the commander didn't want me to go find you."

"Sammy knew it would be a big risk," Dan reminded him. "I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision to make."

Steel glinted in John's eyes as he glared at the ceiling. "It seemed pretty fast to me. The moment I got back to the bunker and found everyone dead, she was already there, telling me I couldn't break you out."

Dan whispered as he smoothed out his blanket, "You should have listened."

"She doesn't give me orders." John got up and paced the room.

"So...we're heading back to the planet?"

John shook his head. "No, me, not you."

"But—"

"We don't even know how to get back, much less figure out how they can even help us." The captain stood there by the bed, watching as his brother hugged himself, shivering. "Let me go first, find out what we can." He strode over to the dresser and pulled out some extra blankets.

"You'll come back?" Dan asked in a small voice.

John carefully draped a thick coverlet over his brother, hating how Dan flinched, caught off guard. "Always."

Dan smiled wanly, fingers creeping out to snag the second cover, pulling it close to him as well. Dan heard John call out his name before and knew he was dreaming. But Dan couldn't figure out which nightmare it was, and John wouldn't say anything to him, wouldn't let him know how much his illness was bothering him, how much it scared him.

"What time is it?" Dan asked, his voice muffled.

Checking the mantle clock, John murmured in surprise. "Two in the morning. You should be getting some sleep."

Dan pulled the blankets closer to himself. "Actually, I'm sort of...hungry..."

"I could get the guards to—"

"No," Dan shook his head. "Could you get me something?"

"You want me to leave?" John asked finally in a quiet voice.

"I need a little time... let me calm down enough to sleep," Dan whispered an apology when he heard John shift from foot to foot. "You've been hovering over me since the day you got me back from Ra."

"I'm not hovering," John said stiffly.

"No, just suffocating me with your guilt!" Dan snapped. He sighed when he heard John take a step back. "Sorry...I need a little time...please?" He turned his head towards the older man.

"I'll go for a minute then...okay?" John wasn't moving.

"I'll be here," the younger man promised, and he felt the blankets press closer to him, a hand brushing back a lock of his hair.

"Get some rest," John whispered, and he stepped out of the room.

Dan waited for the knock on the door, the guard talking to John, and for the door to shut behind him. He waited until he heard the talking fade, the footsteps gone and the echoes of his brother's presence empty out into silence.

When it was completely quiet, Dan let out the breath he was holding, the pain he tried so hard to control, fearing his discomfort would be noticed. He had lain there in bed, clenching his hands, trying to hold in the twisting in his gut and the waves of agony racking his body.

He could let go now.

"God," Dan sobbed, curling tighter within himself. He rammed a fist in his mouth as he choked back the louder sobs, legs twitching in pain. He lay there, hidden in the blankets, a tight ball as he cried in the dark.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

None of the symbols were making any sense.

Frustrated, Daniel threw down his pencil and rubbed his forehead in small circles with his numb fingers.

Daniel dropped his head in the crook of his folded arms, glumly looking at the book underneath him, then at the notebook of scrawled notes. So many symbols. So many different planets where Skaara could be. Where Sha're's Harcesis child could be hiding. Where people were enslaved under fear and false beliefs of Goa'uld gods.

Thumping his forehead against his arms, he sighed. The past was something he was able to tuck away, leave it alone save for a few bad moments when they would return unbidden. He needed to concentrate on the present.

_How ironic_, he thought, sitting up again, an archeologist who makes a career exploring the past, can't even deal with his own.

Dan looked so determined to fight, yet so bone weary tired. Daniel didn't know where his counterpart could have found such strength to go on.

Shaking his head, Daniel berated his thoughts. He needed to concentrate on helping the brothers.

Setting his chin on clasped hands, Daniel chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully. He'd never thought it possible to have any family again. Skaara came close to a brother, but even then, he was more teacher than the sibling relationship those two have. And Sha're—

Well, he ended up losing more family anyway.

And yet here was someone who he could have been, with a brother, sitting around in a world gone to rubble with someone still by his side. All because they met in a park so long ago. All because of something Dan did and Daniel back then couldn't do.

It was amazing how one thing could change so much.

Daniel did remember Chicago. In fact, he remembered it all too well.

And that was the problem—he didn't _want_ to remember.

_Lily lifted her hand up as if to strike him, and he shrank back. The woman lowered her palm with a smirk as if she was joking. As if she wasn't planning to strike him. "You sit still and behave, you hear?"_

_Daniel stared at her, hands on the bag of books he got from Social Services when they went for an update interview. The way Lily cooed and petted him before the social worker made Daniel feel sick. He wanted to tell them all the stuff she did. Tell them how she was really a bad person. _

_But he didn't._

_Because Daniel was a good boy. Lily said good boys didn't say bad things about their new mothers. _

_And that was what she was. His new mother._

_Oh, he wanted so much to say something at the interview, but when they presented him with his parents' old stuff from storage, he forgot to mention it. He was too happy to get them back, never having a chance to hold them as he was routed from home to home. So the books, his_ _daddy's precious journals, the souvenirs from their many travels, were filed away in a box for the future. And aside from the ones he had in his suitcase, which Lily sold despite his efforts to hide them, these were all that was left of them._

_He was so thrilled about getting them back that when Lily remarked she needed to get a bookcase so he could put them in it, he actually believed her and beamed back at her painted face._

_Then as they left the building, she grabbed the bag roughly and tossed it in the passenger seat. And Daniel knew._

_There wasn't going to be any bookcase._

_"Them worth something?" she snarled, eyes flickering from the road to his tiny fists clutching the canvas bag. _

_"N-no..." Daniel jutted out his chin. She wasn't going to have these._

_"I asked you a question! Don't lie to me!" Lily reached over and yanked hard on his ear. Daniel cried out, the abuse bringing tears to his eyes. _

_The car wove a bit before it went up the pavement. Lily swore softly and stomped on the brakes. The car jerked to a halt, and Daniel felt his body pulled forward before slamming back. Clutching his bag tightly, he couldn't avoid the hand flashing across the air._

_Slap._

_Hand on his sore cheek, Daniel stared wide-eyed as the woman screamed at him, yelling all sorts of words he never thought he would hear directed his way. He then did what he'd done before with her. He slowly looked over her shoulder, to some far away spot, anywhere but there and let her words fade. _

_Slap._

_"Pay attention to me you little useless piece of shit!" she screamed. Stretching over, she yanked the safety off his side of the door. She gave him a hard shove until he was pressed against the door. "Ingrate! Never listen! You don't need me? You get out then! Get out! Let's see where you can go all by yourself you brat! Go!"_

_He should have left that day, rather than sit there with his head bowed. Lily calmed and drove them back to her crumbling one bedroom apartment._

Daniel felt his headache throbbing uncontrollably. He fumbled around the desk and found his mug of half-drunk coffee hidden behind a stack of books. Not caring the liquid it held was cold and murky, Daniel gulped it down.

Rolling his shoulders back, he stretched out, trying to get his tired muscles to unwind, to regain some sort of alertness so he could continue. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Daniel squinted at the tablet again.

He couldn't understand it. He couldn't. Even if it was a key, it should have some kind of pattern it followed. Something it used so he could at least have an idea of what might be contained in the other recorder Dan had hinted about. But the code Machello had invented was nearly impossible to crack.

"What are you hiding?" Daniel whispered to the tablet. "Will you be able to help them? Because I can't."

He didn't know if they could beat Ra for a second time.

_Ra circled him, studying him. Daniel felt like a pinned mouse under a cat's paw. "But before my workers question my authority, you will prove that I am their one god..." His eyes gleamed. "By killing your companions."_

_Daniel started, he steadied his voice as he countered, "If I refuse?"_

_"Then I will destroy you," Ra hissed, circling tighter and tighter until he was within Daniel's personal space. "And all who have seen you." Daniel cringed as the ruler's hand drifted up to his chin and tilted his face up._

_His eyes glowed as they drifted down to the necklace he wore. Narrowing, he fixed them on Daniel who was still deciding whether he was afraid or fascinated to see a living legend in front of him._

_"There can only be one Ra," the Goa'uld hissed and pulled off the pendant with a snarl. Ra commanded his children to take him away. As his servants came forward, Daniel saw the harness with the dismantled bomb and his textbooks being carted off. It spurred him to act._

_"No, wait, my lord! You can't!" Daniel called out, stepping forward. The children, startled at the display of defiance, wordlessly watched as he went over to Ra, hand reaching out to the royal robes to plead Earth's case._

_It was a mistake._

_The moment he touched the self appointed god, Ra roared, robes whipping back and his hand lashed out, clipping him under the chin with his metal-gloved palm._

_Daniel fell to the floor, eyeglasses scattering away, his ears ringing._

_"None may approach me without consent!" Ra practically screamed, and his adolescent servants cowered behind the veils surrounding the bath. _

_"You dare attempt to tell me what I can not do? I should have vanquished your filthy planet in the beginning!" Ra stood over Daniel, his face red with rage, the most emotion Daniel had ever seen in the alien. "Your people should have fallen to their knees, but they refused to pray to my glory, and now have the audacity to try and destroy me?" He stooped down and picked up Daniel by the collar. _

_Stunned, he could only stare at Ra's eyes, feeling his knees turn to water. Eyes glowed briefly and settled back to the deep brown, and the god's fast breathing slowed as he calmed._

_"You are not a warrior like them," Ra observed, hissing as his eyes scanned him up and down, making Daniel's skin crawl with the study. Tilting his head as if remembering, the alien nodded. "Yes...you were guarded by the other humans. And you wore my key and spoke the ancient tongue." He shook Daniel. "What are you? Speak!"_

_Daniel didn't know why he found himself shaking. This alien, this man, couldn't have been much bigger than he and definitely a smaller frame. He wasn't helpless as many assumed. He could have pulled free._

_But his eyes._

_"Speak!"_

_Daniel stammered, cringing as he heard his own voice. "Scholar in my world. A scribe in your times. I am no threat to you."_

_"A scribe," Ra repeated. "No threat. No threat?" _

_Ra's eyes flashed with white fire, and he roared, hands bunching to fists at his shirt, shaking Daniel. _

_"Scribes with knowledge taught my slaves to read, write and learn to rebel! Scribes such as yourself!" Ra drew Daniel closer, practically nose to nose. _

_"You are the biggest threat in my reign." The alien smiled coyly at Daniel's blanched face. "But if you do as I command, I would even allow you by my side to amuse me and spare your short life." Ra released Daniel, and he dropped to the floor on his rear. He started when he saw Ra come closer._

_Daniel couldn't speak when Ra came with the glasses one of the servants shyly placed in his hands. With the same secretive smile, Ra drew closer._

_And placed the eyewear over Daniel's face._

_"Yes," Ra purred. "You may provide some amusement for me after all."_

_Ra smiled, hand wandering up Daniel's cheek, and he chuckled, enjoying how he flinched at the touch. The alien continued caressing his face, cold metal sliding down his skin to his Adam's apple _

_"Show me your loyalty, and the village will be spared heavy punishment."_

_Swallowing, Daniel bit his lower lip, Sha're's face floating into view. Her eyes so full of life, of intellect. _

_"Can you smell the burning flesh of my slaves because you refused?"_

_Ra laughed softly as he saw the resignation in Daniel's eyes. _

_"Take him away. Do not bring him to me 'til morning."_

_The small servants dared to venture forward, and they pulled at Daniel's leaden arms, silently guiding him away from Ra's personal chamber. He saw Ra smirking at him as they took him away. He turned his head forward, he still felt the alien's penetrating stare boring into his back._

_Daniel was led to a small room with only a bucket in one corner and a rug tossed carelessly in the other. Standing in the middle of the room, he shuddered._

_Those eyes..._

_Ra was a ruler from ancient Egypt who started an era of amazing progress and culture. _

_A man who smiled when he mentioned how he could kill his people. The ancestors of a civilization he created. _

_A man...who wasn't a man._

_Daniel saw something when Ra raked his body with his dark eyes and knew what the alien truly hungered for and feasted on most of all._

_Fear._

Ra was alive.

Closing his eyes, Daniel took deep breaths, trying to slow the frantic beating of his heart. He could still hear Ra laughing, his voice burning his ears as he hovered over him like a hot summer wind.

If they hadn't stopped Ra before. Ra would have done the same to his world. His reality.

"No..." Daniel whispered, covering his face with his hands, wishing when he removed them, everything would have sorted itself out.

Ra was alive.

Daniel choked, stumbling out of his seat as nausea flooded over him, his eyes tearing as he felt his throat burn with revulsion. He tripped over chairs and books as he staggered towards the wastebasket by the door.

Heaving, nothing coming out without searing the inside of his throat first, Jackson clutched the bin's edge, panting, gasping. When nothing appeared to come out, when there was nothing left and his head felt ten times heavier, Daniel stepped away.

And tottered.

"Whoa," he muttered, hand to his head as the room spun wildly. Vaguely, he remembered he'd never gone down to get something to eat as promised and after that episode, his body was apparently telling him how dumb a move that was. The room careened to the side, then lurched back.

Trying to stay steady on a floor which decided to imitate the ocean, Daniel bumped into his shut door. Knees folding, he slid down, eyes fluttering closed. He vaguely heard someone knocking on the door. As he fell sideways, the door opened, hitting him on the back. The lights flickered above him, and Daniel realized he was on the verge of passing out.

_This'll get Jack upset_, was Daniel's last thought before he felt someone slip a hand under his neck, another shaking him gently. He tried opening his eyes, saw what looked like Jack, stark face, white lips, before it became too hard to stay awake, and he simply followed after the darkness.


	10. Chapter 9

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Sorry for the delay, folks. as you all know was down for maintenance. Think of it as a hiatus if you will. LOL...We now returned to your regularly scheduled program. Cue in corny commercials of things you would never buy...

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

**CHAPTER NINE**

_"Fifteen seconds..." _

_Daniel stared at the Jaffa. Teal'c's staff weapon pointed at him, unwavering. _

_"Thirteen seconds."_

_Everyone was dead._

_"Ten seconds."_

_Teal'c gazed back at him steadily, and Daniel wondered why he didn't kill him._

_"Nine..."_

_He had to warn them. He had to take the chance. Even if it meant dying, spending his last breath to pass the warning. _

_"Eight..."_

_Daniel spun around and took off. Up the ramp, as he heard the staff weapon sizzle to life. Just as he reached the event horizon, contact was made. Flesh to fire._

_Pure agony. The blast pushed him right into the wormhole. Daniel tumbled down the ramp, smoke wafting out of his shoulder. He laid there on the ground, gasping, panting; it impossible to breathe. _

_Daniel remembered._

_They were coming. He couldn't remain here and indulge in licking his wounds. He had to warn the others._

_Daniel staggered drunkenly towards the lit room, where he prayed to God the mirror remained._

_Quiet and unassuming, it stood there, the image of the room he was in, but no reflection of himself was showing. Daniel gazed at the mirror, and it occurred to him the control was back at the SGC he'd just left. _

_Please take me back. Please, Daniel thought to himself as he reached out to its surface, fingers shaking._

_A spark fluttered over him, and it ignited his shoulder wound with renewed fire. His knees buckled, and he unceremoniously fell to the floor. _

_Gasping, eyes clenched shut, Daniel got back up and stood there swaying for a brief moment. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out the GDO. _

_The green light came on, and Daniel closed his eyes and uttered a prayer of thanks before leaping into it._

_Lights stretched and compressed before the ride finally deposited him on the ramp. Daniel sighed and opened his eyes._

_He froze._

_Bodies littered the floor, uniforms, lab coats alike, strewn across the embarkation room like rag dolls. Blood streaked the walls, angry slashes of red covering the walls greeted him as he reeled back in horror._

_He was too late_

"No!" Daniel jerked awake, arms flying out. He felt something holding him down, voices talking in the fog. Back arching, he tried to shove the weight off only to feel a hand gently squeezing his shoulder.

"Easy. Take it easy. You're having a bad dream. Open your eyes. Come on..."

What the? He could feel the cold floor beneath him.

"He's coming around, sir. Looks like he'll be okay."

Huh? Who was that?

"You sure? I mean, people usually don't make it a habit to take headers on the floor."

_Jack?_

"Doctor Jackson? I think he's becoming more alert." Someone insistently tapped his cheek, shaking his shoulder. "Doctor Jackson? Are you feeling all right? Do you need to be taken to the infirmary?"

"No," Daniel groaned. "I'm okay..."

"You sure?" He heard his friend's gruff voice again. "You still look a little pale."

Daniel forced his eyes open to show them he was okay. A stern looking face gazed back at him, eyebrows furrowed. "J-jack?" he managed as he tried to sit up.

"No." A hand pressed against his back, and Daniel found himself being helped to his feet.

Squinting, Daniel saw the hazy image solidify. Short cropped hair, barely dusted with gray, capping the tanned face, same dark eyes narrowing as they stared back at him.

Not Jack.

"Sorry," Daniel said. He retreated a step, and the room lurched.

"Whoa." The captain's hand shot out and grabbed Daniel's forearm before he could fall on the floor again.

Daniel started. Hand cradling his head, he leaned against his desk, nodding to the medic John O'Neill had somehow accosted to get in here.

"I'm fine now. Thank you."

John snorted. "You passed out. That doesn't constitute fine. Shouldn't he be in the infirmary?" he directed the question to the medic instead.

The medic studied Daniel for a moment. "Dinner?" he asked in a wry voice.

Daniel grinned sheepishly.

Nodding, the medic went on. "Sleep?"

"Was going to."

Hemming and hawing, the medic nodded to himself again. "You know the procedure, Doctor Jackson."

"Grab something to eat from the vending machines then bed before Doctor Fraiser sedates me," Daniel quoted, looking embarrassed.

The captain gaped at the two. "That's it? No doctor?"

"Doctor Fraiser went home. Her baby-sitter can't stay too late to watch her daughter, and we've had Doctor Jackson in our infirmary before, haven't we?" The medic cheerfully patted Daniel on the shoulder.

Daniel rolled his eyes, grumbling.

John glowered at the archeologist. "I see you do this quite often, Doctor Jackson."

"Not really...my reputation sort of precedes me," the younger man muttered, poking a pencil on top of the table.

"Well, you look fine now. If you still feel a little lightheaded later on, drop by the infirmary. I think Doctor Warner is on duty, and he can help you."

"Wait, that's it—" John protested, but the medic was already gone. "Where are your quarters?"

Daniel stared blankly at him. "Huh?"

"Where do you sleep?" John scowled at the cluttered office and the tall packed bookcases. He could imagine the disaster of an earthquake here, everything collapsing like poorly stacked dominoes and his frown deepened. "Not here, I hope."

"Um...I have my own apartment off base. I sometimes use an empty bunk—" Daniel never got to finish when the other man grabbed him by the elbow and steered him out of the office. "Wait!" he found himself dragged across the hall to such a room.

"The guy said you needed some rest. I don't know what you people translate that to, but to us, it means eyes shut and lights out." The captain nudged open the bunk room with his foot and practically threw Daniel in there. Stumbling, Daniel regained his balance and gaped at John with huge eyes.

Realizing what he'd done, John mumbled "Sorry" before turning the lights on.

Daniel squinted at the sudden brightness and shielded his eyes with one hand. "I need to finish my study of the tablet. See if I can figure out the codes, the text in it."

"Look, I'm sure my brother will be able to figure it out when we get back."

"But maybe I can help out now because—"

"Because what?" John snarled. "Because he's blind?"

Daniel stilled. "I didn't mean it for it to sound that way."

Angry brown eyes swept over Daniel's contrite expression and softened. "No, you didn't. Neither one of you are like that." John sat down on the stool across from the bed. He waved at the bed, silently telling Daniel to sit as well.

"Why are you so determined to help us?"

Daniel started. "Excuse me?"

The captain waved around the room, to himself, then to Daniel. "I can understand your colonel wanting to help, I guess. Man of action sort of junk. And from what he told us before, those guards who followed us may still be out there mucking up your reality."

"Ra," Daniel murmured, nodding his head. He felt a chill going down his back and shuddered. "Yes, there may be a chance Ra could be making plans to send more people through right now."

"And that forty-eight hour thing might not count, huh?"

Daniel shook his head. "He's dead here." He pointed to the floor. "The cascade effect wouldn't affect him. Maybe some of his men, but he wouldn't be concerned about that. In forty-eight hours, he could produce enough destruction before the time is up...destroy enough worlds." _Such as mine._ Daniel shivered.

John said nothing, lips pursed as he studied Daniel. Wordlessly, he handed over a cellophane wrapped sandwich. Daniel blinked at the food.

"Was getting a bite to eat for me and Dan down at your cafeteria. But I lost my appetite," John explained. He didn't mention the fact that he lost it the minute he saw all the soldiers, the familiar faces, the labs brimming with late working technicians.

A base filled with people. All alive and well. Talking. Laughing. Serious. Simply being...alive.

How could things be so different here from his world? So drastically different? He was horrified to hear he and Dan were not brothers here, never having shared the same surname, yet this Daniel went through the same cruel encounters with Lily Spencer as did his brother. He also saw how Daniel Jackson's eyes lit up with intelligence, walking around from place to place in a world unmarred from Ra's corrosive touch.

No, it simply wasn't fair how the odds ended up in his world and the evens added up here.

_"I tire of him. You may have him."_

"Captain O'Neill?" A soft touch tentatively tapped him on the knee. Startled, his arm whipped out and snaked around the Goa'uld's neck.

"Captain O'Neill!"

Blinking, the room focusing once more, he saw his arm was tight around Jackson's throat. Shocked, he pushed him away, his offending arm dropping fast to let him go. The scientist dropped to the floor with a gasp, hand on his throat, his eyes wide.

"Shit, I'm...I'm sorry..." John breathed. He didn't know why it would bother him so much that his companion was apprehensive towards him now. He extended his hand, offering to help him back up.

Without hesitation, Daniel accepted the hand and got up unsteadily, returning back to the bed. He studied John, asking, "Are you okay, Captain O'Neill?"

John was stunned to find concern in the young man's expression, and he almost snarled back a response. But instead, he nodded towards the dropped sandwich. "Eat."

Sheepish, Daniel peeled back the cellophane and took a sniff at the sandwich before making a face. "Not really hungry," he confessed, setting the food on the table by the bed.

John's frown deepened. Obviously, the scientist did not take good care of himself. And while his brother had joked Daniel was chubby, he could clearly see Jackson was not. Maybe it was the hair, the short cropped cut characteristic of the military he could find himself considering but never Dan. It made his face look drawn, thinner than it really was, eyes bigger like a child gaping at some shiny new toy. Long fingers tapping on knees, nervously beating out a rhythm as if they couldn't stay still. The captain's eyes widened as if seeing Daniel for the first time.

He looked young.

Painfully young. Even younger than Dan.

"Why are you here?" the captain suddenly asked, finding himself really needing to know.

Daniel looked surprised at the question.

"Why here? At this project?" John crossed his arms together. "Is it some academic curiosity? I know they surely won't let you publish anything you know from here. The only thing not classified in this base is probably the socks you're wearing, and that's all. You're not going to gain any renowned glory from all this."

"I'm not here for some paper," Daniel murmured, absently playing around with the clear plastic wrapping. "Well...not directly."

_"So who do you think built the pyramids, Doctor Jackson?"_

_Daniel saw the disbelieving faces focused on him now, their interest sparked by the question. He leaned against the podium, dismayed when he couldn't think of a plausible answer._

_"Martians?" the speaker snidely added, and the audience chuckled._

"Someone approached me with the project to translate some ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs," Daniel remembered. He could still feel the rain trickling down his good jacket, worn in some spots after months of trudging up and down the coast lecturing, pushing his theories.

Sadness flickered in John's eyes. "Catherine?"

Surprised, Daniel nodded.

"Some things never change," John muttered, eyes cast down as if in grief.

"Is that where we...I mean, where you met?"

"Jack?" Daniel blinked in surprise. "Sort of." _Met wouldn't really be the word. Confronted maybe._ "We didn't get along at first."

John looked stunned. "You didn't?"

"He was different then." _And so was I._ Daniel picked at his pants, at a loose seam. "We went through the Stargate to Abydos—"

"Where?" John felt a chill when he heard the name. Why was it he could still feel the cursed suns burning his shoulders?

Daniel paused, thinking John didn't understand the first time. "Abydos. That was the first set of symbols on the cartouche founded buried with the Stargate in Giza, Egypt," the archeologist explained.

John grunted. "Oh yeah. You guys mentioned that before. I...wait a minute...you went through the Stargate?"

"Yes." Daniel wondered why the captain looked upset.

"You went through the Stargate, having no idea what was on the other side? What? You had a death wish or something?"

Daniel stared at the wrinkled cellophane in his hands. "No, but I really wanted to know if my theories were right." _Though now I wish I was wrong. _

"Theories?" John repeated in a flat voice. "What theories?"

"I didn't believe the pyramids were built by the Egyptians of the period. The structures were too advanced," Daniel said, shrugging as the older man shot him a disbelieving look.

" You actually went ahead and published that idea? Dan was considering it but decided not to!" John shook his head and snorted in disgust. "So it was for some paper."

"No, you don't understand." Daniel's voice faded away as he saw the angry scowl on the captain's face. "It wasn't...like that at all." He shrugged. "I really had no place left to go at that point."

John tilted his head a bit, puzzled.

"Your brother was probably right not to have published," Daniel said somberly. "I was laughed out of my peers' circles. I lost all my grants. The universities wouldn't have anything to do with me, and I was evicted out of my apartment the same day." He shrugged, but the laughter from the lecture hall still stung. "Then Catherine showed up, offered me a chance to prove myself right and...I took it."

"Just like that." The captain looked troubled. "Not even considering who you were leaving behind?"

"I had no family left...well...none who would care."

"What about your adopted parents?"

"I was never adopted."

"What?" John nearly fell out of his seat.

Daniel looked up, wondering why John looked upset. "Captain?"

"No one adopted you?" John's voice faltered. His jaw clenched as he thought of how old Daniel was then. "So you-"

"Wandered from foster home to foster home until I was old enough to get myself in UCLA on scholarship when I was sixteen," Daniel finished in a dull, emotionless voice. He gave the older man a tight smile. "I was able to take such a risk, Captain. It made going around for digs in every corner of the planet much easier to do when you didn't have that many people you needed to write back to."

John frowned at the explanation. His frown deepened as he thought of this man throwing everything away, even possibly his life at the time just to find some satisfaction in anything. It bothered as he realized this Daniel had had no one to stop him. No one to make him hesitate, rather than jumping in at the first foolhardy chance.

"So...what did you find there?"

Daniel gazed back at him with solemn blue eyes. "Ra."

John sucked in his breath. "Shit. I take it he wasn't Mister Congeniality over there either?"

"Um...no...he wasn't very happy to see us."

"I'll bet," the soldier muttered. He arched an eyebrow towards Daniel. "When was this?"

"Around 1996."

"A year after Cha—" John couldn't finish. "Why did they choose the colonel, then?"

Daniel didn't answer, appearing very uncomfortable with the question, and John shook his head.

"Never mind...I think I can understand why." Standing up, he paced the small room, hands in his pockets. "So...you guys met Ra there. And obviously you guys did something and got rid of him."

"He captured us as we were returning to the chambers and...well...we got separated after...after..." Daniel paused, took a deep breath and went on, "after I was shot with a staff weapon-"

John skidded to a halt. "What?"

Shrugging, Daniel fiddled with his sleeve. "I well...I died."

Mouth dropping open, John sputtered. "Jesus. How...I mean..."

"Ra revived me in his sarcophagus. He wanted me to kill the rest of Jack's team as a show of...power." Daniel shivered. "I didn't. We escaped thanks to Sha're—"

"Sha're?" John frowned at the name.

Daniel's voice lowered. "My wife."

"Your—" Standing over, he glared at Daniel. "I thought you said you didn't have any family here!"

"I didn't. She was from Abydos. I met her there and stayed with her."

"Stayed?" John sat down on the bed besides Daniel, stunned. "You stayed behind? Didn't go home?"

"Abydos was home."

"So why did you come back?" John wanted to know.

Silent, Daniel stared at the floor, watching as John's shadow stretched over his. _"Goodbye, my Dan-yel."_

Daniel closed his eyes. "Because she wasn't there anymore. They took her away."

Eyes softening, John watched the slouched back. "The Goa'uld?"

"Yes," Daniel whispered.

"So you came back here to find her?"

Daniel nodded. "I wanted to find my family. Sha're and her brother Skaara."

"Did you?"

"...Sort of..." Daniel choked out. "I found her."

"Is she here?"

Daniel shook his head, shoulders drooping further. His voice was barely audible. "No. She's dead."

"I'm sorry." John whispered after a moment's pause.

Daniel nodded absently. "Me too."

"So you're out there up against this Apophis?" John asked. "I mean...you found her now...sort of...why stay?"

"I can't turn away now." Daniel lifted his head, locking gazes with John. "Not when I know there are so many people out there...enslaved by the Goa'uld."

John smiled sadly. "Your reality or not, huh?"

Daniel returned the gesture. "I've seen the destruction that could happen to Earth. I was in an alternate reality before."

"How?"

"A quantum mirror...on P3X-233. I saw Apophis come and destroy everything. I was able to get back and warn Jack."

"And he believed you?"

Daniel nodded. "Not at first, but he did eventually and we went over and—"

"Kicked some Goa'uld ass?" John quipped.

Laughing lightly, Daniel nodded again. "Exactly."

Amazed, John stared back at the young man. "You are definitely a person not to be underestimated."

"Huh?"

"Never mind." John shifted in his seat, eyeing the man's eyelids fluttering open then shut. "Look, I didn't mean to keep you up. I..." He looked surprised at his own revelation. "It was...interesting talking with you."

Smiling shyly, Daniel replied, "Thank you...I know Jack will be able to figure out a way for you guys to get rid of Ra."

"You sound sure."

"We did it before. We have to do it again."

John arched an eyebrow towards the scientist. "Have to?"

Daniel's grin faded. "Yes. Have to." He swallowed, face paling a bit. "I've met Ra. He...he wasn't very nice. I could safely say...even worse than Apophis."

John didn't appear happy with the assessment. Uneasy, he shifted in his seat. "So...you're going to be on the recon mission in a few hours?"

"Yes..." Daniel studied the captain. "Uh...is that a problem?"

_Yes_, John thought to himself, his chest tightening at the thought of this man walking around with his brother's face with Ra's men out there. "Would it matter if it was?"

"No."

"There may be gunfire," John warned.

"Yes, there may be."

"And bullets don't exactly give any heads up warnings before they hit you."

"Um...that is true."

"And you may get injured. It can hurt like hell."

"Oh...I am most definitely aware of that part," Daniel muttered with a wince.

John's eyes narrowed. "Should I ask?"

"Um...no."

The captain grunted. "I can't watch your back. And the colonel can't always watch yours."

"I'm not asking anyone to."

"You're being ridiculous."

Daniel shrugged, not commenting.

"You can get yourself killed," John grated out that last piece of unpleasant possibility.

"I've been dead a few times so I know the risks."

"Should I even try and ask about that one as well?"

"No."

John sighed. "You are most stubborn, Doctor Jackson."

"Uh...thank you?"

"And I was right. You do have a death wish." John crossed his arms, observing the weary posture. "Could I at least convince you to get some sleep?"

"I appreciate the concern, but I—"

"I could get Colonel O'Neill over here to ask instead," John threatened.

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Don't bother. Knowing Jack, he's probably set his alarm for four to go check on me. He'll be coming around in an hour or so."

"Actually," a dry voice remarked. "I was thinking of setting it for four, but decided to set it for three instead."

The two men turned around and saw Jack's tired face peering through the slit of the door.

"Everything...okay here?" Jack asked nonchalantly as he pushed the door open wider. He fixed his gaze on John, and his eyes narrowed.

"Fine," Daniel said in an innocent voice. "Captain O'Neill came by to give me a sandwich."

Jack rolled his eyes. He pointed to his watch. "It's late, and we need to be up and around by ten for our mission brief. You got less than seven hours to sleep."

"He won't," the captain jerked a thumb towards Daniel. "And he nearly passed o-"

"Why are you up, Jack?" Daniel jumped in, shooting a pleading look at John. "Shouldn't you be asleep, too?"

"I was asleep until my geek alarm decided to remind me of the fact you might not be." Jack scowled at his friend who had the gall to look like he was saying "Who me?"

"You should keep better watch over this guy," John told the colonel.

"He's a grown man. He can take care of himself," Jack retorted.

"Oh, _obviously_."

"And what's with the concern all of a sudden? I thought you hated the guy!"

"I don't hate him! I just didn't think he should be on the team, that's all."

"If you think I'm going to keep him off my team—"

"I just didn't like the idea of exposing him to danger, leaving him at risk—"

"Danger? Risk?" Jack glared at his double. "You make it sound like I shove him through the gate with a pat on his back and only a toothpick to defend himself!"

"I was only suggesting—"

"Your suggestions suck, _Captain_."

"At least I give a shit, _Colonel_!"

"This from a guy who tried to choke a member of my team before—"

"I didn't want him to speak with my brother, and that's not the point!"

"Then what is the point?" the colonel hollered.

"The point is you're not seeing the whole situation with a clear head!"

Jack stared at his double dumbfounded. "I'm not thinking with a clear head? _I'm_ not thinking with a clear head? I-I'm not the one who was shouting!"

"I wasn't shouting!"

"You were, too!" Jack shook his fist in the air at him. "God, you are so stubborn and narrow minded and—"

John narrowed his eyes. "Watch it, mister. It goes both ways when you say that!"

Jack threw up his hands in disgust. "Daniel, will you tell this guy he's overreacting?"

Daniel responded with a snore.

The two soldiers blinked, turning their heads. Daniel was still leaning on the bedpost, eyes shut, his glasses crooked, sitting in a crossed leg position. Daniel was oblivious to the entire argument.

"Oh for crying—" the two began before they jumped, looking at each other.

"Well," John offered with a crooked grin. "He's getting some sleep."

The two men tiptoed out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind them.

After a few minutes, Daniel cracked open an eye and groaned. "I thought they would never shut up." He rubbed his head with his hands. He was feeling a little tired.

Eyes drifting shut again, Daniel's last thought was how he wasn't able to differentiate between the two voices before. They both sounded like Jack, and for some reason, it made him smile. With that, Daniel let himself drift away, hoping for once he wouldn't dream.

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Walking down the hall, Jack was acutely aware of the startled looks he and his double received as they passed by members of the base. He ran a hand through his hair, suddenly self-conscious of the gray distributed there.

"I didn't know he was married," John suddenly said.

Jack grunted. "Not in the legal sense here. But yeah...he was."

"What happened to her?"

"She was taken as a host for Apophis' queen."

Alarmed, John stared at the colonel. "Shit," he breathed, "no kidding?"

O'Neill's face darkened. "I don't joke about stuff like that."

Brown eyes flitted over Jack's, and then the captain nodded. "No, you wouldn't." He stuck his hands in his pockets.

Jack didn't say anything

"I'm surprised he stayed around this long," John mused.

The colonel glanced over at him with a dirty look. "Does he looks like the kind of guy who would just give up?" Jack snorted. "He can be stubborn at times, tenacious."

"That's what I told him before."

Jack grinned. "Well...he is. It helps during those tight spots."

Taken aback by the certain response, John studied the colonel carefully. "If he goes back to our reality...to help out...if you can—"

"Risk?"

"My brother is wanted by every system lord and general in my solar system right now, colonel. Your Doctor Jackson would be walking right into a guillotine with a dotted line around his throat."

"We'll be okay," Jack said solemnly. "Daniel knows the risks."

"He doesn't know them all. And neither do you," John said and he turned away, heading for the door. Pausing, hand on the knob, ignoring the soldier guarding the room, John tossed over his shoulder a quiet "Good night, colonel" before entering, closing the door quickly behind him.

Carefully maneuvering around the small table and chairs, John slowly moved the nearby couch close enough until it was perpendicular to the bed. He went to the dressers and pulled out the last spare blanket.

"W-who's there?"

"It's me, Mutt," John called out when he heard the bed creak. Walking over, John deposited the covers on the sofa and sat down on the edge of the bed. John reached out and carefully, without alarming his brother, grabbed his wrists in a loose hold. "Over here," he repeated before letting them go.

Dan visibly sighed in relief. "Oh. Sorry. I didn't hear you the first time."

He lay on his back. "You were gone for a while. How does it look outside?"

"Almost the same," John told him. "The base is under NORAD like ours, but they got more levels. Especially the lower levels. They're new."

"Sounds like a big place," the younger man commented.

"There were even a bunch of offices for the social sciences. Doctor Jackson has one here-" John stopped as he saw Dan turned away. John tapped the ailing man on the shoulder. "Dan...you feeling okay?" He noted the puffiness of his brother's eyes and pulled his hand away.

Dan smiled brightly. "Fine. I'm fine. Why?"

John felt his stomach churn at the grin. He could see dry tear tracks on Dan's cheeks. His brother probably didn't even realize it himself. "Nothing...I was wondering...that's all."

The light expression wavered on Dan's face. "John?"

"Get some sleep," John whispered. He brushed back a lock of hair and couldn't help trailing a finger down his brother's cheek, following a tear track. Dan stiffened, making the connection and turned on his side, facing the wall.

"Good idea," he said, voice muffled. "I want to sit in on the meeting."

"Dan…"

The shoulders curled within themselves. "Good night, John."

The captain sat there with a heavy heart, watching as his brother pressed harder against the pillow, his breathing too rapid to be sleeping, yet the young man made no sound. Staring at the curled form, John wondered how long his brother had cried before he fell asleep. Was it a while ago? Just before?

Reaching, he grabbed the last blanket from the couch and gently covered Dan with it, taking care to tuck it in around the other coverlets. hand lingering on the last blanket bunched into a tight fist, knuckles bleached white.

"Night, Danny," the soldier finally whispered, easing off the bed with great care. He lay down on the sofa, his full length barely fitting on the two seater.

Listening to the slow breathing on the bed next to him, John allowed the reassuring pace of sound to lull him to sleep.


	11. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER TEN**

"Doctor O'Neill?" General Hammond's voice rang out in the meeting room.

Dan lifted his head, startled out of his thoughts and felt an inquiring hand on his shoulder, John whispering, asking if he was all right. He turned towards the speaker. "Sorry, what was the question again?"

"If you're feeling tired—" Hammond started.

Dan shook his head. "No, I'm not. My apologies. I was thinking about something else."

"We wanted to know what you two can remember about reaching P9H-521 and our reality." Daniel Jackson's voice floated his way from the other end of the table.

A grimace fleeted across Dan's face. "What's with all the weird names?"

"It's a scientist thing, I hear," Jack replied in a dry voice from Daniel's direction. A higher voice, which Dan figured was Sam Carter, laughed in return.

General Hammond cleared his throat. It sounded very loud as he tapped the table with a pen. "Doctor O'Neill, from what your brother told us, there was no mirror you went through to reach from your reality to ours."

"None I recall," Dan tilted his head towards John's direction. "I wasn't really...coherent much at the time. John? Do you remember seeing any mirror?"

The captain shook his head. "No...nada. We escaped to one planet the tablet gave us, then jetted to the one you're calling P9H-521." John frowned, thumb scratching his chin. "All I saw was the Giza on stone on our side, then your Stargate, which we went through to get to this reality."

"You didn't check the other rooms? Maybe a mirror like this was nearby?" Carter asked, her seat next to Janet's. She lifted up a glossy picture of the quantum mirror.

John darkened. "Major, no offense, but we were busy escaping with our lives. I didn't have time to play Richard Burton!"

Jack arched an eyebrow. "Isn't Richard Burton an actor?"

Daniel, Dan O'Neill and John automatically corrected him. "Explorer." The three jumped.

Dan chuckled to himself, dropping his head in his hands and shaking it. "Oh God, that was just too weird."

John grinned sheepishly towards Carter as an apology.

Sam got up from her seat and headed for the wall where the images were shown. "We've sent a few more probes back after you two came, and the MALP found this." Carter clicked the remote, and the enlarged picture of the dead Jaffa came on, distorting her face when she blocked the screen.

"Shit," John breathed. Dan leaned closer to him in concern. "Those are Ra's flunkies all right. How many?"

"We can't tell," Sam said as she continued to the next image. "We can't get the probes to go any further. The damage to the structure was extensive, probably due to the quakes-"

"Quakes?" Dan spoke up, brow furrowing. "What quakes? John and I didn't encounter any of those."

"When we arrived here, the place was pretty shaken, cracks on the walls, electrical storm brewing outside and a lot of minor seismic activity," Sam told him. "It was the reason why we left ahead of schedule."

"I threw some grenades behind me before diving into your Stargate," John said softly. He shook his head, hand massaging the side of his forehead. "What if the thing doesn't work anymore, and we can't go back?"

"I'm sure it's sturdy enough, whatever it was that brought you here to withstand the explosion," Sam stood by the projected images. Facing the screen, she studied the pictures brought back by the probe. "I don't see any serious structural damage."

"But we went through no mirror," Dan insisted. "And we didn't feel like we were transported anywhere. I don't understand how we would have ended up here."

"We're going to have to take a look around, sir," Jack said, looking down to the end of the table. To Jack's concern, Daniel didn't protest. He was just sitting there, eyes on the folder before him. Jack frowned but continued with the general. "I think we need to gauge what's out there before we can make any move."

Hammond nodded. "The President has agreed this new threat warrants a team being sent over to P9H-521 to assess the situation and perhaps...a team going over to Captain O'Neill's reality."

"We were thinking we could try contacting the Asgards like we did with our last encounter," Sam jumped in, waiting until the general had finished.

"John told me about them, but are you sure they can help us?" Dan interrupted. "Ra has grown in power considerably since he invaded Earth. I mean, his power, you could say, tripled just because he conquered the only race who dared to defy him thousands of years ago. Are these Asgards really powerful enough to stop him?"

"Oh yeah," Jack quipped, sharing a grin with Carter.

John shook his head. "But if we need to dial eight symbols, our base..." He paused as if unsure whether to continue. Dan touched his arm saying it was okay. The captain took a deep breath and went on, "Our base...we already have some sort of a naquada reactor running the thing already, but even then we had to run it at bare minimum."

"Maybe we should figure out how to get you guys home first, okay?" Jack broke in.

General Hammond nodded. "Agreed, Colonel. SG-1, I'm going to give the green light for this. Captain O'Neill, do you and your brother wish to—"

"Actually," Doctor Fraiser interrupted. "If you don't mind, Captain. I would prefer if Doctor O'Neill stayed. Major Carter and I are hoping we can block the signal and stop the nanocytes from creating more damage-"

Dan tilted his head towards the doctor. "Nanocytes?"

Sam clicked the button once more, and a still image of Dan's blood sample came into view. "We found these in your blood."

John got up and went to the wall. "This...this is what's in him, right now?" He stared at the black cells surrounding the red ones.

"What are they?" Dan asked softly.

"They're like miniature computers, programmed to do certain things due to signals given," Sam explained.

Fingers gingerly feeling the area around the devices, Dan dropped his hand down quickly, his hair concealing them once more. "My discs...?"

Fraiser nodded, fingering the corners of the folder she brought with her. She glanced down at the file with a sad look. "It's similar to what Colonel O'Neill encountered in a past mission to P3X-8596."

Jack winced. "Now there's something I was hoping to never see again." John spun around towards him. The colonel shrugged. "I had them in a pizza-"

"Actually, Jack. It was a ceremonial cake she offered you. Not a pizza," Daniel pointed out.

The colonel gave him a stern look, and Daniel returned a sheepish grin. "Okay, it was some cake and nearly put me through early retirement," Jack amended and made a face, flexing his fingers as if he could feel the arthritis cramping up the joints.

"What the colonel is trying to say," Hammond translated, "was Colonel O'Neill grew older at a rapid rate and reached over ninety in less than a week."

"Whoa," Dan murmured, turning towards Jack's way, "talk about a faster way to get your pension."

"I know." The colonel grinned. "I was this close," he lifted two fingers and squeezed, leaving a little spot in-between, "to buying some land in Boca Raton to retire!"

"I don't see why," John muttered, crossing his arms in front of him. "Damn place is a virtual desert now."

Everyone on the table stared at the captain.

Dan coughed. "Florida has been drained of all fossil fuels and swamp land. It's mainly a transfer depot for the Goa'uld to move their prisoners and slaves. There's a battleship with a Stargate there."

"That's another thing." Carter turned the lights back on and returned to her seat. "Now, when our Stargate is activated, the other vibrates in resonance with it. And the Goa'uld can sense the naquada in it. I know Hathor was able to find this base the same way."

Daniel bit his lower lip, saying nothing. He fiddled with his pen, not noticing Jack shooting Carter a frown. The major mouthed "Sorry" before continuing. "How was it you guys were able to remain undetected the whole time?"

"Machello." The word was soft. John sat down in his seat, staring at the projected image on the wall. "He contacted my brother when they were both prisoners, and he told him the location of dampeners to absorb...ah...how much was it again, Dan?"

"Ninety nine percent," Dan thought it over before answering. "Yeah, Simmons said it was ninety nine percent."

Carter started, looking at the general. "Wow, we could use something like that!"

"Trade ya," John said lightly, "Your reality for Machello's gizmos."

The laughter was strained around the table.

Dan sighed, leaning into the seat. He nodded when he felt John press a glass of water into his hands. "Before that, it wasn't really a problem anyway. We were more concerned with stealing ore to power the base than being discovered." He coughed and had to stop to sip the water first. Voice raspy, he went on, "Ra took over our planet and littered it with teleport rings, battleships with their own Stargates, patrolling death gliders, and trains filled with ore. Even if their Stargates vibrate or they detect naquada, the Goa'uld generals wouldn't even know where to begin to look for us. They don't know we have a second Stargate. I don't think they're even aware of its existence."

"That's because it wasn't theirs to begin with," Daniel cut in a tight voice. Jack and Sam exchanged concerned faces at the words brimming with anger. "They stole it."

"Huh?" John blinked.

Teal'c finally spoke up. "The Goa'uld did not create the Stargate technology. They took it from whoever built it on your world to begin with. It is the way the Goa'uld survive, taking the resources and technologies needed."

"It was never theirs," Sam agreed. "They're a form of...parasitic race."

"Parasites," John muttered, his face dark. "How oddly appropriate."

Hammond tapped his finger on the table, signaling they get back to the topic at hand. "Well, then. If it's fine with you, Captain, your brother can stay as you join SG-1 back on P9H-521." He looked around the table. "Agreed?"

Jack nodded, exchanging a look with John. "Yes, sir."

The general stood. "Then you depart in one hour. Captain O'Neill, Major Carter will see to your equipment and pack. Good luck." He walked around the table, patting Dan O'Neill on the shoulder, to John's surprise and left the room.

"I like him," Dan spoke up in a light voice. "Reminds me of George."

"That's because he is, stupid," John pretended to swat him on the head.

"Stupid?" The younger brother sounded indignant. "I'll have you know I've got more Ph.D.s than you've got funny jokes!"

"What? My jokes are funny!"

Dan laughed out loud, not realizing he was getting stares from Janet, Sam and Teal'c for it. He shook his head, amused and got up shakily with his brother's help.

John glared at Daniel as he wrapped an arm around Dan's waist, helping his brother towards Janet. The doctor looked on sympathetically as she waved the waiting medic to come forward with the wheelchair. John looked reluctant about handing Dan over, pausing by the chair and the doctor.

"You really think you'll be able to help him?" John asked, glancing down at the top of Dan's head.

Fraiser wrapped her fingers around the wheelchair, feeling like she should be wheeling Dan herself personally. "I promise you I will do my best."

Dan eased himself down into the wheelchair with a grumble. "So you go off and play Luke Skywalker while I sit here like a ninny and let them play vampires and suck out my blood." The scholar rested his arms on the sides, hands feeling over the edges with a bit of apprehension. He tilted his head up, grinning crookedly. "No offense to you, Doctor."

Smiling gently, Janet pushed the chair around the meeting table. "None taken." She peered over her shoulder and saw both Jack and John staring at her with equal looks of concern. "We'll be waiting, gentlemen."

"Bye," Dan called out faintly, waving a hand over his shoulder as he was wheeled away.

John stared at the doorway. "You really think she can find a cure?"

"If anyone can, Doc can," Jack said. "She's performed a lot of miracles here." Jack coughed, and nodded towards Sam. "Carter can show you to the armory. We'll see you at the locker room and head for embarkation together, okay?"

"Sure," John said in a dull voice, still staring at the spot where Dan had been. He had the urge to follow the wheelchair instead. "Meet you in the locker room." He tore his sight away from the doorway. John wanted to call out to the doctor to bring him back.

"She's a good doctor."

John glanced up at Daniel's face. The man nodded towards the doorway. "I know she's...um...her in your reality...but she's a really good doctor here in ours."

John shrugged, trying to act casual. He stuck his hands in his pockets and turned towards Carter. "I guess we should be going then, Major."

"Uh, sure...right this way," Sam shrugged as well as John went out the door without waiting for her.

"Hey," Jack gave the back of Daniel's shoulder a quick pat. "You okay?"

"Sure." Daniel managed a shaky smile. "Just wondering if Doctor Fraiser can help him."

"Doctor Fraiser has often overcome adverse conditions when all hope seemed lost," Teal'c announced, the respect for her clear in his voice. "She may be able to cure Dan O'Neill."

Jack nodded. "Yeah. Hell, when this is all over, we'll see Doc pull another rabbit out of her hat yet."

Arching an eyebrow, Teal'c repeated, puzzled. "Rabbit out of her hat?"

"Oh for...you know what I mean!" Annoyed, Jack motioned they should be on their way as well and headed for the door, Daniel and Teal'c trailing behind him.

"I do not, O'Neill," Teal'c said after him. "Doctor Fraiser does not wear hats."

Jack's groan was audible all the way down the hall.

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Sam's eyes darted over to the man walking beside her but kept her mouth shut. The captain appeared lost in thought as he followed her to the armory. Facing forward again, she nodded to a few familiar faces as she went.

"Dan would like it here," John commented. He studied the colored lines on the floors, the labels on the doors as he walked by them. "This is like a scientist's dream."

"Was there some sort of base in your reality for the Stargate project?" Sam asked, curious.

John shrugged. "You could call it that. We were under NORAD, but only about fifteen levels or so. It was like borrowing office space. They were still trying to figure out the damn thing when I signed on; then Dan got...recruited as well." The captain surveyed the labs with their glass doors as they made the corner. "He got the symbols figured out and had been pushing for us to go through the damn thing for months. Government was sitting on their hands, wondering what to do." He paused as they reached their destination. "Then Ra came, waving a false sign of peace."

Carter swiped her card. The green light blinked, and the door made an audible click before she tried the door. Nodding towards John, she waved towards the filled shelves. "Well, this is one of our armories."

"Nice," John said in a stiff voice, eyes counting the numerous weapons before him. "Mind if we borrow a few? Like say...a few thousand?"

Laughing awkwardly, Sam handed him a holster for the hip, a Glock, and an assault rifle. "Uh...Supply was told to send a uniform and vest to the locker room."

"Fine." John gathered his gear, ready to head for the locker room when he heard the major run up to catch him. He turned to her, puzzled.

"I was wondering." The major appeared nervous for some reason. She stuck her hands in her pockets as she trailed slightly behind him. "You know me...I mean...my twin back there?"

Grunting, John nodded. "You mean Sammy?"

"Yeah. Is she...is she a doctor or something?"

The captain skidded to a halt. "Sammy? A doctor?"

Carter blinked, wondering why he looked shocked. "Yeah...of astrophysics." She pursed her lips. "You mean she isn't? I recall you calling me Commander when you first arrived."

John didn't know whether to laugh or not. "Her a doctor? No way. She's military all right. All the way through."

Surprised at this, Sam almost stopped right there, but she hurried beside him. "So...what's she like? I mean...she's..." Her mouth dropped open when John looked at her sideways. "She's...you...you two are not engaged or something, are you?"

John nearly crashed into the corner he was turning to. Stunned, he spun around and gaped at her. "What?"

"Uh...I take it from your reaction, the answer's no."

"God, Major. If you...I mean...she and I were engaged, I wouldn't have lived this long!" He shook his head, veering for the locker room. "And I'm happy with my wife Sara, thank you very much."

Now it was Sam's turn to run into a wall in surprise. "Sara? Oh...you mean you're married to her? I mean...uh..."

"You mean Colonel O'Neill isn't?"

"Oh no. He was. He's divorced now." Carter shut her mouth with a snap, wishing she hadn't asked. She was saying too much and of someone else's life besides hers.

Shaking his head, John reached for the locker room door. "Divorced? Why would he...oh..." His hand paused over the knob. A sad look crossed his face, and the captain sighed. He scrutinized the major. "Why'd you ask me such a weird question like that? About us being engaged?"

Sam fumbled for an excuse and to her dismay, couldn't think of any. So she mumbled, gaze dropping, flushing. "Well, so far, the last two alternate realities had me and the colonel's counterparts either engaged or married." She lifted her head, grinning. "I had five bucks riding we're not. He had five betting we were."

John rolled his eyes. " You just got five bucks." He swung open the door and ducked in. "Later."

"Captain," Jack greeted as he saw who entered. The colonel finished tying up his left boot and stood straighter. "See Carter got you set up. Supply left your things over there." He nodded towards the bench.

Studying the folded fatigues and vest, John nodded listlessly. He picked up the vest and arched an eyebrow at the dangling straps.

"That's for the backpack," Daniel explained, emerging from behind the row of lockers already dressed. He motioned towards a similar pack on the bench. "They connect together."

"Okay," John grumbled to himself as he zipped up. He hoisted the assigned pack. "I...let's see..." He fumbled with one strap before grunting when he couldn't tell where it went.

"May I?" Daniel extended his hands out, offering.

Jack watched as his double threw up his hands, muttering "Please". He stood there, leaning against the lockers, looking on as Daniel strapped the pack to the Velcro on the vest with ease. John gave a brief smile, muttering thanks as he patted down the vest, exploring the pockets.

"How does it fit?" the colonel asked as Daniel backed away.

"Fine. I-what the hell?" John pulled out a small bottle. He squinted, trying to read the text and arched an eyebrow.

"Foot powder," Daniel explained as he zipped up his own pack with his usual brushes and tool kit.

"Foot powder," John repeated, shaking his head. "Unbelievable—" He stopped when he saw Daniel check his weapon before he slipped his sidearm into his holster with a practiced hand, then tucking in a few clips of ammo in his hip pockets.

Daniel looked up at John and saw the frown. "Captain O'Neill?"

John stared at the hand gripping the handle, then at Jack. His frown grew, and he looked down at his own holster. "I'll be outside," he muttered and strode out, boots heavy on the floor. The door quickly slammed shut behind him.

There was a brief moment of silence before Daniel glanced over his shoulder to Jack. "What was that all about? Did I do something wrong?"

"No," Jack muttered. "You did something right."

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_"I said no." John glared at the older woman standing in front of his porch. The sharply dressed lady didn't even wince when he clenched his jaw, sitting on his swing porch, the beer forgotten in his fist. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sara discreetly slipping back inside the house, shutting the screen door. "It's a military project. I agreed to be reactivated and come on as part of security detail because of my Black Ops experience, but what reason do you have to want him in on this project?"_

_Catherine Langford showed him a folder, but he refused to even glance at it. She sighed. "I told you before. The symbols are beyond our reach. We can't get them to work—"_

_"Maybe they're not supposed to work," John pointed out. "And you could forward the symbols to him for translation—"_

_"He needs to see the," Catherine lowered her voice, "device in order to understand what the text means. If you'd just let me talk to him instead of intercepting every message I left him the past few months. This is very important. The symbols on the coverstone might explain how it works."_

_"Or maybe they're telling you to leave well enough alone!" John crossed his arms, glaring at her standing uncomfortably in the hot summer sun. "I won't have him involved in another god damn military fiasco!"_

_"You're just uneasy about your brother associating with the military because of the Iraqi incident a little more than two years ago—"_

_He stood, towering over her. The woman flinched. "Can you blame me? You read the background files, I'm sure. He nearly got himself killed heading there with Frank Cromwell! He shouldn't have been there!"_

_"From what I read, Doctor O'Neill only volunteered to act as liaison between Colonel Cromwell's team and the Iraqi government in hopes of finding you," Langford started to say, but she took a step back when John leaned closer, his eyes narrowed._

_"Do you know what they do in the Middle East to Americans who are involved with the military? Do you even know what they did to him when they caught him snooping around? Frank and Dan never told me, but the guy doesn't stay in a hospital for three god damn weeks with me simply because he misses me!"_

_"I didn't see any report about him getting injured," Catherine trailed off when John's face turned red._

_"Of course they wouldn't say anything! How would it look that Uncle Sam let a civilian jump into the frying pan not even okayed by the State Department?" he hissed, stalking closer until the woman was pressed against the wooden rail. "They went rogue, and he nearly got himself killed running along with the big bad military boys! I saw the bandages! I heard his bad dreams! They didn't have me doped up enough for him to hide them completely from me!"_

_Speechless, Catherine clutched the folder to her chest like a shield._

_John scanned her up and down, snorting. "You're damn right it's because of the Iraqi incident." He stressed the words by framing quotation marks with his fingers. "He's not going to get dragged into this shit. He's a damn good archeologist and a respectable professor at Colorado U and that's how it'll be! I swore I was not going to lose another member of my family because of me!" He spun on his heels, reaching for his screen door._

_"We have many consultants there. I'm one of them. There's no real danger," Catherine tried again lamely, her courage returning with John's back turned._

_He glanced over his shoulder. "Then why is that thing hidden under a nuclear silo, miles underground? Why are they asking hundreds of soldiers from all branches to come and guard the damn thing?"_

_Catherine couldn't give him a reply._

_"My answer still holds, Doctor Langford. No." John slammed the screen door hard._

He never thought he would see the day his brother would be holding a gun.

_Not Dan...Daniel_, John had to remind himself again. He stared at the locker room. His hand curled around the handle grip of the pistol in his holster and tightened.

"Are O'Neill and Daniel Jackson ready?"

"Shit!" John flew around, hands whipping out the pistol at—

Teal'c.

The Jaffa stared unblinkingly at the gun aimed right for his head, hands behind his back.

John lowered the gun, chest heaving. He gaped at the alien. "Where the hell did you come from?"

"Chulak," Teal'c solemnly told him.

"No, I meant...ah hell, never mind." John reholstered his sidearm and crossed his arms. "You all set?"

"I am ready," Teal'c told him and repeated his last question. "Are O'Neill and Daniel Jackson ready?"

"Almost. Jackson's getting his gun checked." John grated out and glowered at the locker room. Pursing his lips, he stood there scrutinizing the door as if he could see through it. "Does he use that thing?" John abruptly asked. "The gun, I mean."

Thinking carefully, the Jaffa gazed at the locker room as well. "Only when necessary."

Sighing, John ran a hand through his hair. "I guess he must have been doing okay if he's lasted three years."

Teal'c nodded. "Daniel Jackson has often surprised me with his...ability to survive grim situations."

"Huh," John murmured. He blinked at Teal'c. "Just one thing."

Teal'c arched his eyebrow questioningly.

"What's the deal with all this Daniel Jackson stuff?"

Before Teal'c could answer, the door opened, and Jack emerged out of it with Daniel trailing behind as he put on his boonie hat. Sam arrived at the same time, nodding a greeting towards her CO as she waved a meter.

"Geiger counter," she explained to John. "There were trace amounts of radiation before, and the probe detected increased temperatures. This will tell us if the place gets too hot for us."

"I know what it's for. Stargate travel didn't suck out my brains, Major Carter," John muttered, irritated. He walked along with the rest of the team, heading for the elevators. As the double doors shut and it began to move, he shot her an annoyed look.

Surprised, Sam shrugged. "Sorry, was trying to be helpful."

John looked surprised as well. "You were? Sorry...too used to you being bossy...automatic reflex."

"Bossy?" Jack called out from the back of the elevator. He grinned over at Daniel who was patting down his pockets, searching for something. The archeologist lifted his head as well at the term and chuckled. "Gee...here I was thinking it was my job!"

John rolled his eyes while Sam gave the colonel a dirty look. Shaking his head, wondering why Jack even found time to joke, he studied the younger man standing beside him, still feeling around his pockets for something. "What you're looking for?"

"Glasses...I hope I didn't leave them in my locker." Daniel peered in one pocket and sighed when it came up empty. "Nuts...maybe it was the lab...did I have them in the meeting room? Maybe back at my office...I...maybe this pocket? No...darn..."

"Daniel," Jack called out.

Daniel looked up in time to catch the eyeglass case tossed to him.

"Next time, use one of those rope things so you won't keep losing them, okay?" Jack pretended to grouse. "Next time, I'm stapling them to your forehead!"

Sheepishly, Daniel mumbled his thanks and grumbled when he saw a fingerprint on the lens. He glared at Jack in the back of the elevator, which the colonel dutifully ignored, whistling softly to himself like he didn't know. Sighing, Daniel cleaned it off with a corner of his sleeve. Putting them on, he blinked owlishly through the lenses, squinting for a second until he could adjust. He caught John staring at him and gave a shy smile.

"Captain O'Neill?" Daniel saw the worry lining the man's forehead. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," John grated out. When the elevator stopped, he left the compartment before the doors completely opened.

Jack made no comment. He just motioned towards the group, leading them down the hallway to the Stargate. As the heavy doors slid open, the Stargate inside burst into a pool of shimmering light, brightening the chamber to a sea of sparkles.

"SG-1, Captain O'Neill. You have a go for P9H-521." General Hammond stood in the observation booth. "Good luck."

Jack waved jauntily at the general. Suddenly his hand stopped in mid-air, and John turned around to see what caught his interest.

Behind the general, Doctor Fraiser was rolling Dan's chair closer to the window. Pale face, blank eyes not seeing John staring right at him, mouth a thin, anxious line.

"We'll be back soon," Jack murmured. The captain nodded absently, eyes glued to Dan.

Fraiser bent down and whispered something in Dan's ear. The young man turned his head until he was facing John. And smiled. He leaned closer to the microphone Hammond tilted towards him. "Hurry back, John. We'll be waiting."

"Later," John whispered. He turned back towards the Stargate and took a deep breath.

Jack waited until his double put on his helmet and gave him a brisk nod before going up the ramp. He could sense Daniel and Teal'c catching up. Teal'c went past him and was through the Stargate first to check for safety before he, Daniel and Sam were swallowed by the wormhole.

John lingered at the event horizon and looked over his shoulder.

The captain gave a wave before jumping into the Stargate. Seconds later, the wormhole flashed and was gone.


	12. Chapter 11

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

"He's gone," Janet murmured to the occupant in the chair.

Dan nodded, hearing the hum of the Stargate disappear. "I know...the vibration's gone. Thanks for bringing me back."

The doctor didn't say anything as she moved the chair around the technicians, glad the man couldn't see the stares at his unseeing expression, gawking at the silver devices peeking through his long bangs. Then, as if sensing the attention, Dan lowered his head a little, and the hair draped forward once more, concealing them.

General Hammond blocked her way out as he looked down at Dan O'Neill. "It may be quite some time before they return, Doctor O'Neill."

Shrugging, Dan nodded behind him at Janet. "Well, after they finished sucking my blood for more tests, I thought I would drop by and see him off." He laughed sadly at his choice of words. "I would like to hear more about your initial encounter with Ra. If...I mean...if its okay." Dan tilted his face towards Hammond with a hopeful expression.

"I think we can share a few details," Hammond found himself smiling down at the scholar. "That is, if Doctor Fraiser doesn't need you any more."

Janet shook her head. "We're done, although I would prefer if he remains in the infirmary. His blood pressure is a little low."

Sighing, Dan folded his arms in front of him and shook his head. "Well, if you don't mind the smell, General Hammond, would you like to drop by my office later?" he joked.

Hammond patted Dan on the shoulder. "I'll see you there in a few minutes, Doctor O'Neill."

Sobering, Dan nodded. "Please. I really would like to find out more about who's destroying my home. Anything at all."

Silent, Janet wheeled Dan away, leaving Hammond staring at their departing backs before he went upstairs to his office.

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"Oh yeah," John said in a tight voice. He stared at the four bodies now laid out on top of bags. "Those are Ra's tattoos on their foreheads." He scrubbed his face with one hand, the other clenched into a fist. "Damn. They must have been closer than we thought." Surveying the chamber, he made a face. "They were that close to reading our symbols. They would have known we were heading back to a Stargate on Earth." The idea made John swallow hard. "Shit."

Lightning flashed, peeking through the cracks on the ceiling, lighting the bodies like a spotlight. Teal'c silently stepped forward and zipped up the body bags over the Jaffas' faces, sealing their tattoos branding them in Ra's servitude away from view. The zippers purred shut, and John looked back grimly at the somber plastic bagging.

"I don't see another Stargate here, sir," Carter reported. "Everything looks the same as we left it with the exception of those four bodies."

Daniel lifted his head from his crouched position beside the DHD platform. He stopped his rubbings of the symbols on the coverstone and frowned.

Carter swung her counter back and forth at the wall. She turned to Jack with a brisk nod. "Readings are definitely higher now." She gazed up at the towering surface. "It's active, sir. This wall has something to do with it, I'm sure."

"Can you tell me what?" Jack drawled, leaning against one of the statues, hands resting on the top of his hanging rifle. He glanced over sideways and made a face at the statue providing him the support, its metal face stretched out in contortions as if screaming, arms on the sides with circlets clutched in its fingers. "Better yet, tell me what the hell does this thing mean? Gives me the creeps." Teal'c arched an eyebrow at the object but hazarded no guess.

Standing, Daniel calculated the height of the wall with his eyes, head going up and down. "You know," he mused, "this could be like an extra large mirror." He spread his arms wide. "We keep thinking it's a quantum mirror, a small thing, like the one we found on P3R-233. But what if..." He got closer to the polished surface.

"Don't go any closer!" Jack and John both barked, and Daniel jumped.

"Now that was scary," Carter commented, amused when the two O'Neills glowered at each other while Daniel stuck a finger in his ear, trying to shake out the ringing.

"Surround sound Jack O'Neill. Great," the archeologist muttered. He sighed, deciding not to get the two men more upset and backed away from the wall. "I was trying to see—"

"Lay one finger on that thing, and I'll have you chained and tied to the MALP probe so fast your glasses will still be standing there without you!" Jack grated out, and the young man jerked back another step.

"Couldn't have said it better myself," John muttered as he looked down at the dead Jaffa on the ground.

"This may be a larger version of the quantum mirror." Teal'c spoke up from his guard post by the rooms. Tossing a brief look back at the rooms to make sure no one was there, he went on. "Perhaps to transport larger groups of people?"

"Why need something this large though?" John insisted. He swept a hand across the span of the wall. "This thing is huge; it could probably even transport death gliders…" He paused.

The rest of the group had the same grim face.

"Sir, you don't think—" Carter began.

"We don't know for sure," Jack said carefully, eyes on Daniel as he paled further. "Let's see what we can find out first before we start touching stuff." He glanced over to John, half surprised the man agreed. He'd expected the captain to push for returning back to his reality.

"Jack?" Daniel was in front of him, peering at him worriedly. The colonel started. When did the guy creep up on him?

"Huh?" Jack fumbled as Daniel pushed up his glasses, puzzled at Jack's flustering.

"I said I was going to go to those rooms there," Jackson pointed to the half-hidden rooms to his left, "and see what I can find. Okay?" Head tilted to the side, Daniel studied the older man. "Are you okay?"

_Am I okay?_ Jack regarded the shiny wall to his left, realizing how it was the only barrier between his world and the disaster that fell on John O'Neill's version.

"Jack?"

Waving a hand, showing it was nothing, Jack nodded. "Good idea. I'll take the center rooms. Teal'c, you and Carter take the ones to the right. Radio every hour, okay? Captain, do you want to go along with…" He trailed off when he saw his answer.

John looked right at Daniel, who blinked in return and pointed to himself with a finger before mouthing "Me?" in surprise. Jack rolled his eyes.

"Okay kids and...ah...Captain." Jack made a face. What was he supposed to call himself? "Let's go to work."

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"So...I...I mean...Daniel went through the Stargate to the symbols found on the cartouche?" Dan sat on the hospital bed, fascinated. He leaned forward, legs crossed at the ankles, his hands bracing them as he pressed for more information. "Just like that? Colonel O'Neill didn't object?"

Hammond coughed awkwardly as he thought about what he'd read in the original mission's report. "I wasn't there, Doctor O'Neill, but from what I understand, Doctor Jackson wasn't...asked to join the first recon mission to Abydos. He...volunteered, stating he could find the symbols for the team to return home."

Nodding, Dan mused out loud. "Of course. You need a new set of symbols and point of origin to reach Earth. Too bad there weren't any listed on the same cartouche. When we...I mean...the resistance first started to use the Stargate on our side, it took a lot of guesswork from what I heard. I taught a few team leaders how to read the point of origin, but..." He saddened, shoulders slumping slightly. "Some never came back. We had to chalk them off as either dead or soon to be. We didn't dare send anyone back for them, especially if there was a suggestion there was no way to return." Dan lowered his head, one hand massaging the nape of his neck wearily as he sighed.

Hammond felt a chill thinking about all the men and women left behind. He cleared his throat. "Where did you get the addresses?"

"Machello," Dan replied simply. "We had symbols where he hid the dampeners and the reactor. Machello's map...There were already symbols listed on his map. Safe havens. Places Machello hid before they caught him in Shyla's mines."

Hammond started. "What?"

Puzzled, Dan didn't understand why the general stilled, the rustling of uniform fabric comforting in a room filled with the beeps and chimes of medical machines. "Shyla. I take it you know her majesty as well?"

The general grunted as he considered the empty gurney next to Dan's. "You might say that. We've encountered her and...excuse me...did you say...majesty?"

Coughing, Dan darkened. "Yes. Apparently, from what Machello told me, she was a good queen, but for some reason after her father died, she...changed. Got greedy and joined the Goa'uld system lords, power in exchange for what she had in the mines. Probably the power got to her head."

Nodding solemnly, Hammond tore his sight away from the empty gurney. "She must have." He kept silent on what he thought might be the reason.

"What ever happened to her?" Hammond wondered out loud. Daniel had gone back and helped the princess overcome her addiction. He had been impressed with Jackson's compassion and understanding, but if it were him, Hammond would have just destroyed the sarcophagus and let the woman writhe in her own agony. A notion he suspected O'Neill had toyed with as well.

"To Shyla?" Dan scratched his cheek. "I think Machello mentioned she held a treaty feast on her planet, and one of Ra's generals came. She wanted to offer her resources to the Goa'uld in exchange for more control over the system her planet was in. They agreed...or so she thought."

Puzzled as to why the scholar stopped, Hammond asked, "Then what happened?"

Shrugging, Dan looked unsure. "Machello just laughed when I asked him myself and said she was given to another god as a gift and became someone called Amonet." He frowned. "I know the name is referenced in Budge once or twice, but I wasn't sure what it meant in her case."

"She was made a host," Hammond spoke up. He felt his chest tighten. How strange everything can turn out so differently. "They must have taken her as a host and took over her planet instead of bargaining. So she ended up with nothing at all."

"More than she deserved," Dan said in a flat voice. "She sold Machello to the generals before he could bomb the the meeting room with seven major generals. She stopped one of the best ways we could have fragmented their power."

Hammond was getting a light-headed feeling as he listened, and he sat down on the bed. As the mattress shifted, Dan paused.

"Uh...is everything okay, sir?"

"Fine, son." Hammond replied as he wearily massaged his temples. His gaze wandered over to the silver discs on Dan's temples, and he lowered his hand. "How are you doing?"

"I hate waiting."

The older man chuckled. "A side I take it coming from your brother."

"Sort of. John's a bit more patient now. Too patient at times when it is almost scary." Dan grinned. "He's mellowed out."

It contradicted what Hammond saw of the captain. Mentally, he suspected John was only patient with his brother Dan.

"How long do you think it'll take for Doctor Fraiser to come up with the results?" Dan asked. "She took enough blood out of me to refill a good sized cat." Wincing, he rubbed the inside of his elbow, bruises from the needle marks purple and red. "Are the marks still there?" he asked softly.

"Yes." Hammond looked sadly at Dan. "My wife had cancer. She had the very same marks. They don't go away as quickly as before."

"Yeah," Dan started to rub at them again but stopped. He folded his hands and set them on his lap. Hammond noted they were shaking a little before Dan clasped them together tightly. "They seem to hurt more. The needles, I mean." Sighing, he rounded his shoulders, hand reaching back to massage an aching muscle.

Silently, Hammond found the controls and turned it on, adjusting the bed until the upper half was parallel to Dan like a chair.

Blinking in surprise, Dan leaned back into it and smiled. He closed his eyes and blew out a breath of relief as he sank into the support. "Thank you. How did you know?"

"I've stood around for long periods of time and sat on enough chairs to know when a back needs a break," Hammond said in a light voice. Seeing the lines around the scientist's eyes deepen in pain, he briefly considered getting a nurse.

"You're a good man. Here and in my reality."

Silent, Hammond considered asking Dan about his own counterpart.

Dan heard the pause in the older man's voice, the shifting restlessly on the bed, and understood. "You're on the rebel base with Sammy. You and Harry had to take over as adjunct leaders for the US."

"What?" Hammond stared at Dan. "What about the President?"

The scholar paused as if unsure if he should say anything.

"It's alright, son. I know that information must be privileged. I shouldn't have asked."

Dan shook his head. "It's not that. I know they were the first to go through the Stargate on what symbols we did have before they took over the Cheyenne base. The leaders from thirteen major nations were waiting by Cheyenne, but when they struck DC..." The young man appeared nauseous and he stopped to take a deep breath. "All the world leaders went through to any set of symbols we had so far along with a small unit, and the only man who knows where they are is dead." His voice lowered. "He was forced to bomb the base around him and bury the Stargate before the Goa'uld could storm the place and maybe track where they had gone."

"They can't," Hammond told him sadly. "If they don't reach the DHD in time, the symbols fade out. There's no way to know where they went."

Dan looked upset. "Then...then he...died for nothing. Jo...oh God..."

Getting up, Hammond went over to him, setting a hand on his thin shoulder. "I could be wrong, son. They might have been right over his head. The person may not have had a choice at the time. I would have done the same thing."

"Yeah...you're probably right." Sighing, Dan folded his hands together, drew his legs up, rested his elbows once more on his knees, and sat there on the bed. He perked up when he heard footsteps.

"Doctor Fraiser," Hammond greeted. "What news do you have for us? Were the tests successful?"

Dan sat up straighter when he didn't hear an immediate reply from the doctor. "Doctor?"

Janet pulled out a folder she had tucked under her arm and silently handed it over to Hammond. Turning to Dan, she sat down on the edge of the bed and placed one hand on his shoulder.

Dan closed his eyes. "No, huh?"

"I'm sorry".

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_Sticking his head into the lab, John called out, not bothering to knock. "Yo, they're serving meatloaf at the canteen, and it actually looks like it so hurry it up before they run-" John stopped when he realized Dan wasn't even looking up. _

_Rolling his eyes, he walked over to the bowed head and gave it a tap. Startled, Dan looked up, hand to his head as he yelped._

_"What the hell was that for?" his brother demanded, glaring at John over his glasses. "Geez, I was writing my notes when you jumped me!"_

_"Jumped you?" John echoed. He glowered at his brother, crossing his arms. "I was trying to get your attention."_

_Dan grunted, waving his hand at John. "Well, you got it. What do you want?" He went back to writing his notes, one hand on the object of attention, a large semi-translucent paper with charcoal rubbings on it. _

_"What do I want?" John repeated._

_"Is there an echo here I don't know about?" Dan muttered. His eyes on his notebook, he didn't bother to look and see John standing there tapping his foot._

_"It's two o'clock," John told him._

_"Goodie for you. Glad to know you can finally tell tim- ow!" Dan put down his pencil and bellowed, "Dammit, John! What the heck is your prob- oh!" He flushed as he checked his own watch. "Two? Oops."_

_"Yeah...oops." Shaking his head, John pointed to the door. "You almost missed..."_

_"I was supposed to get a fax from London on their Egyptian..." Dan, not realizing he'd interrupted his brother halfway, got up and went around to the fax machine. He cried out triumphantly when he found his fax, waving it in the air like a trophy._

_"...Lunch," John finished lamely. He crossed his arms, glaring at his brother who'd gotten so absorbed in reading the fax, he didn't even return back to his seat, standing inches away from his chair. "Are you even listening to me?"_

_"Yeah, yeah, uh huh..." Dan waved another hand at him, gaze glued to the sheet of paper in his grip._

_"I was thinking of you and me grabbing a bite to eat. I'm on detail until late so..." John gave up trying as Dan muttered to himself, fumbling for a pencil on the desk without looking. John yelped as his brother's fingers, during its searching, skimmed close to the scalpels some idiot had left out. Lunging forward, John grabbed the wrist and shoved the first pencil he found into Dan's hands._

_"Thanks," Dan mumbled as John steered him back to his seat, giving him a gentle push so he would promptly sit down without falling on his ass._

_"Welcome...ah...are you going to eat?" John asked in a dry voice._

_"Sure..."_

_John wasn't convinced. "I don't think you're listening to me."_

_"What makes you say th-" Dan trailed off again as he found something interesting and circled it with the pencil John had given him._

_"No reason...I wanted to tell you me and Kawalsky fell madly in love with each other, and we're going to run away to Hoboken and get hitched."_

_"Congratulations...I'll let Sara know..." Dan suddenly looked up, grinning wickedly, and John shouted._

_"You idiot! You were listening!" _

_"Well, duh!" Dan rolled his eyes as he waggled his pencil at him. He turned back to his reading again as John grumbled._

_"Then if you're listening, you might as well scoot out with me and grab lunch, because you said you owe me a lunch anyway for that bet we made about Connors and the barmaid Lucy and..." John sighed when he saw he'd lost Dan's focus again. Giving up, he patted his brother on the head, which got a barely audible grumble from him, another wave of the hand shooing him off, and headed for the door. Glancing back, John noted Dan hadn't looked up yet._

_"Ah hell," he murmured, as he left the office. He might as well bring both their lunches up or Dan was going to forget to eat again..._

"Daniel..." the radio in Daniel's backpack chimed in Jack's characteristic drawl.

John leaned against one of the many funny faced statues that cluttered the room like a junkyard, arms crossed, watching the archeologist as he scribbled something down in a little notebook. He glanced up at the walls; rows and rows of pictographs lined the surface of the huge inner room like a giant stone tablet. None of it made any sense to him but apparently held some significance to Jackson.

"Daniel...God damn it...Daniel!" Jack's tone began to sound irritated.

He wondered when Daniel was going to notice the colonel had been calling him on the radio for the past minute or so.

"Jackson, if you don't pick up this radio right now, I swear I will go over there and tie the damn thing to your butt!"

"Aren't you going to answer that?" John asked casually, wincing as the colonel's ranting made the radio squawk painfully.

Daniel looked up, puzzled. "Huh?"

"Daniel!"

Flushing, Daniel tapped the mike. "Uh...hello?"

"Hello? What the hell took you so long to answer! I had the damn thing on for five freaking minutes, and I said every hour, not every millennium! I swear you keep doing this every single time just to see how loud my voice can go! Don't make me go down there..."

As the voice went on and on, Daniel winced, glad he didn't have his earpiece on and had opted to just use the walkie-talkie instead.

John decided to let Daniel off easy and clicked on his radio. "Colonel O'Neill, why don't I do the reports instead?"

Grumbling, Jack agreed, the radio crackling a response. "Might as well...otherwise I'll be running over there myself every hour."

John snorted. "That was nothing! Dan can go on without noticing a rock concert behind him!"

"Oh yeah?" Jack taunted. "For how long?"

John mentally calculated. "His best was...uh...an hour. Give or take a minute."

"Hah!" Jack crowed. "Jackson's best was hour and fifteen!"

Carter's voice piped in on the line. "Actually, sir, I've seen Daniel do two hours."

Jack laughed out loud, and John shook his head. _Bunch of crazy nuts_, he thought as he glanced over to Daniel. Sure enough, the young scientist was back at work, oblivious to the debate he'd started.

"Teal'c, what about you, big guy?"

The Jaffa sounded stiff. John was surprised he'd even answered.

"I do not make it a habit of stalking Daniel Jackson for prolonged periods of time, O'Neill."

Jack sputtered, the radio squeaking as he did. "Stalk? I don't stalk!"

"Then how do you know it was an hour and fifteen?" Teal'c questioned. John could have sworn he heard a smile in the Jaffa's voice.

The colonel sputtered, making the radio creak and groan. "Never mind! Get back to work!" And then the radio became abruptly quiet.

John shook his head. "Bunch of goofs." He scowled.

"Oh, they're not always like this," Daniel suddenly spoke up. As he pulled out a small bag of tools, he went on, "Jack's joking might seem a bit inappropriate at times and like he's not taking it seriously, but on the contrary, he takes it all seriously. Sometimes too seriously." Daniel stared at the piece in his hand, not really seeing it. "Too much serious stuff happens," he added in a softer voice as if it wasn't meant for John's ears. Lowering his eyes, the archeologist searched through his bag for paper. "I'd rather hear him joking...because then...it really is...bad when he doesn't." Daniel shyly smiled. "But don't tell Jack that."

John shrugged. "I didn't mean for it to sound...you know...so...doubtful."

"I know." Daniel shrugged as he pulled more stuff out, the tiled area around him soon cluttered up with brushes, chalk and rolls of paper.

"You have enough paper to do rubbings?" John asked gruffly.

Daniel looked up startled.

The captain looked uncomfortable with the scrutiny. "Dan carried around wads of paper to do that. When we went to Egypt..." He stopped, looking unhappy for some reason at the memory.

"Must have been nice. Did you go on a mission there?" Daniel inquired as he untied the scroll of paper he'd brought with him. He picked the curled corners for a moment.

"No...just a...promise I made awhile back with him," John smiled to himself, not seeing Daniel studying him with curiosity.

"How did you like it?"

The captain blinked as if he came to a revelation. "Actually...it was surprisingly...nice. I complained it was a lot of sand, but Dan—" He paused. "Anyway, he kept stopping everywhere making rubbings, taking pictures of artifacts. Finally, he somehow got me carrying around his stuff like a donkey."

"I'd rather have a sample of the writings I'm observing...to compare when I recopy my notes," Daniel explained. He pulled out a roll as he spoke, his voice growing stronger as he ventured onto a familiar topic. frowned when he realized he hadn't taken a piece of charcoal with him as well. "Nuts, I forgot to—"

"Here," John said gruffly, a piece on his palm.

Staring at the item, Daniel took it without a word and proceeded to trace out the contours of the graphics with the side of the charcoal, the symbols slowly forming on his sheet of paper. He felt John staring at the back of his head, and he shifted in place.

"Dan was a professor at the University of Colorado," John said out of the blue.

Looking up, charcoal pausing mid stroke, Daniel didn't say anything. The captain motioned towards the wall and what Daniel was doing. "I mean...surely you could do stuff like this in a safer environment, rather than on some alien planet."

"To be honest, I've been on much more dangerous digs," Daniel mused as he sat on his heels, looking up at the wall.

Daniel scratched his chin with a finger, flushing as he stared at the rubbed sketch on the floor, curling up again to the shape it had been before. "Back then, I was worried about grants, proving to my colleagues I was right, publishing papers when I should have been working on a site just so the universities wouldn't write me off as a waste of time." His voice hitched over the last word. He swallowed and continued. "Here, I have a much bigger concern. The Gou'alds."

"But it shouldn't be your concern," John blurted. "This shouldn't involve you. I don't get it. I mean...I can understand wanting to find your wife, but she's gone now." He stopped when he saw Daniel lower his head. The captain cursed to himself. "Aw hell, I didn't mean it that way."

Shrugging, Daniel went back to making more rubbings on the adjacent panel. "Sha're's gone...but...I promised her something. I promised her I would keep fighting. Sha're would have wanted that."

"Sha're wouldn't have wanted you to paint a bullseye on yourself, either," John pointed out in a sharp voice. "She wouldn't want you to risk yourself."

"She knew I'd be okay. And I can't turn away from all this. I told you before." Daniel stood, gathering the scrolls. He glanced over to John, his face serious, determined. "I can't go back to the life I had before, not after knowing what's out there, constantly threatening to destroy us. They have to be stopped and not just because of any promise. They simply have to be...stopped."

"But you're not—"

"Not military?" Daniel cut in, his voice flat. "Not a soldier?"

John bit his lip.

"I've said it before. I've been in much more dangerous digs. I've handled guns. I prefer not to, but sometimes there really isn't any choice when all you have to rely on is a professor who's more interested in which name will be on the paper, and native tour guides more concerned with saving their American dollars than your skin." The archeologist stuck his hands in his pockets as he gazed up at the walls, his lips a thin line as he recalled his past with an obvious lack of fondness. "Peru, Turkey, Jordan, Israel...they all have wonderful sites, but there were times..." Sideways, Daniel looked over to John before returning his attention to the walls. "Let's just say...if I had a team like the one I'm on now, a team I know will be next to me no matter what is thrown at us, back then...it wouldn't have been so...nerve wracking."

Sighing, he pulled back his hat, letting it dangle behind him with the straps around his neck and ran a hand through his hair. He frowned as he fingered one of the designs on the wall. "Hm...this looks familiar..." Daniel poked another symbol. "So does this one...almost...Sumerian... although the strokes look a bit off like-" He paused when he saw a shadow covering the area of interest. Over his shoulder, he found John standing there, crouched down with his head over him, staring at the symbol as well.

"Looks like the symbol for sun." John saw Daniel's startled look on his face, and he tensed. "What? I picked up a few things from Dan."

Embarrassed, Daniel nodded. "Jack usually zones out when I start doing my," he waved his hand in the air and drawled, mimicking Jack, "thing, as he would say."

"So he leaves you to do all the translations and symbols?" John grated out. "And what, pray tell, does he do?"

Daniel grinned sheepishly. "Makes sure I don't get myself killed." He chuckled, clapping his hands together to brush off the dust and sneezed. "So far, that system works."

John settled himself by the numerous statues lining the center of the room. Glaring at the shadows tucked in the many corners, the captain found himself listening to Daniel muttering to himself, translating what he could.

_Dan mutters to himself, too_, John mused. A fond smile crept over him without realizing it. It was oddly reassuring, watching the young scientist hunched over in a posture sure to haunt him hours later in cramps, gawking at symbols with the same fascination he held for Sara when she placed her pale, slender hand in his and said "I do".

The smile faded away.

God knows where the owner of that perfect hand was now.

If only he hadn't left and made the deal with Ra like countless able men and women had after the first year of the invasion. It never did him any good. A year of sweat and tears in the mines, clawing his way up in the ranks, and all he had to show for it was a broken house.

And a broken brother.

John shot a glance around the room, not liking how the vibrating from slight tremors made the statues hum like tuning forks. Lightning crackled, making his ears ring with the booming noise. He thought he heard something else, but with all the background noise, he couldn't be sure. The captain wondered if he should tell Jackson to pipe down, but the soft mumbling was soothing in a weird way, and he hadn't the heart to say anything.

_I don't want to distract him while he's working_, John reasoned with himself.

Click.

John turned around as he heard something again. He fingered the flashlight in his vest pocket, pulled it out and turned it on in one fluid motion. Sweeping it at one suspicious corner, he saw nothing.

"What's wrong?" Daniel approached the captain as the soldier swung the flashlight to the back, cursing softly as the flashlight wasn't strong enough to reveal the end of the deep room.

"Shh." John gripped Daniel's shoulder, telling him to be quiet. Glaring at the room, the statues and columns that littered the place, his eyes narrowed. He didn't like it.

"What is it?" Daniel whispered, his eyes wide.

"Thought I heard something. Go...get the colonel in here," John whispered as he slipped the flashlight back in his pocket and snaked an arm around his rifle, readying himself.

John gave Daniel a shove towards the door, which led to the first main chamber. He shot Daniel a burning look, and the young man nodded, stepping back towards the exit. The captain cautiously approached the center of the room, towards the dark corner where he thought he saw something.

A shadow dashed to his left, and he whipped his head, alarmed. "Jackson!"

Daniel spun around at John's shout, but before he could see the captain pointing to the darting shadow, he felt a thick arm wrap around his throat, tightening immediately on contact. Jerked up abruptly, toes dangling above the floor, Daniel's hands flew to try and pull the arm off.

Daniel could feel hard metal, armor perhaps, digging into his back. He stilled, hair rising on the back of his neck as he realized it was a Jaffa. No doubt a fellow comrade to the other four dead in the chamber outside.

"Chem nok tra?"

Daniel swallowed and felt the lump unable to go down as the arm tightened. Spots began to dance around John O'Neill's grim face as the captain stood there, rifle aimed at his attacker. He choked and let one hand drop. The other drifted to the communicator still attached to his shoulder and clicked it on.

"Chem nok tra?"

"He said what magic is this?" John translated, sight glued to the enemy standing behind Daniel. He darkened, rifle steady as he barked. "Jaffa kree! Chu lo yon tok. Kree!" His knuckles turned white as he gripped the weapon tightly.

Daniel wanted to tell the captain he understood, that he just didn't have the time to do any translation right now because he was busy trying to breathe, thank you very much. But instead, he sputtered, coughing as he felt his face burn with the failing efforts.

"Let him go," John said in English now. He took another step closer, but froze when the archeologist gasped as the offending arm tightened. A dark face, gleaming gold tattoo, was half hidden behind Daniel's head, the broad shoulders donned in gray armor outlining Jackson's body like a frame. "I said let him go!"

The Jaffa snorted, dismissing the different language and stayed with his own tongue. "Chem nok tra?" Another hand went up to Daniel's head and painfully, tilted the man's head back. A finger roughly scratched at the temple, leaving a reddened streak of skin in its path. "Chem nok tra?"

John froze, pale as he realized the Jaffa was demanding to know what happened to the devices.

The guard thought he was Dan.

Dan was a wanted man. Dead or alive.

"He's not who you think he is. Jaffa! Neet chok re'klya. Kree! Neet re'klya!"

The guard laughed, not believing it for a moment. His other arm wrapped around Daniel's waist and squeezed. "Nok Ra shem!" He shook the young man like a doll.

Daniel stiffened at the word Ra. When he felt himself being dragged towards the door, to the chamber outside, he knew the Jaffa wanted to take him back to Ra. And even if Ra didn't exist here, he would surely die once the guard realized Ra didn't exist in this realm of reality.

Twisting, Daniel tried breaking free, coughing as the grip wouldn't let enough air pass through to his lungs. As he saw John's anxious, white face waver, Daniel was about to pull his sidearm out when he heard another voice.

"Hold it right there, bucko."

"Ja'k," Daniel tried to croak out when he felt the guard freeze, his grip loosening in surprise.

The colonel's voice was dry. "Daniel, now what did I say about playing nice? I said no pointy objects, and that includes Jaffa armor."

John only glowered at the Jaffa. He didn't even acknowledge Carter and Teal'c silently coming up behind the colonel. He kept his eyes on the Ra tattoo instead.

Clearly outnumbered, the guard shifted uneasily. Daniel could feel the metal mesh of his armor rubbing against his back like nails. He winced, hearing the guard's breathing pick up.

"Shem mak tal sho...che wei ko tak... re'klya...Ra shom...Ra...con da ro..."

Motionless, Daniel caught a few words, the speech too low to understand all of it. Something about Ra's pledge. Something about purging. He found himself turning his head a bit to hear better, but John had heard enough. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the guard's other hand reaching for his hip. The captain turned red, veins in his neck bunching as he roared suddenly and headed straight for the guard.

Jack was taken aback and barely got out of the way as his double collided with the pair, sending them into the giant chamber with a loud crash. He heard Daniel crying out, more in surprise than in pain as the captain roughly yanked him away from the guard. Spinning around, he found Daniel sitting on the floor, dazed. Teal'c was barely able to pull the captain off the Jaffa guard.

"Son of a—" John shouted, kicking and twisting as he felt himself being yanked back. Glowering at the Jaffa on the floor, he swore softly. Carter kept her gun aimed at the Jaffa, darting a worried look over to the colonel who was kneeling beside Daniel.

"You okay?" Jack asked, one hand on Daniel's shoulder.

Breathless, Jackson nodded and motioned towards the guard. "What was that all about?"

John snarled, jerking his arms away from Teal'c and stalked over to their prisoner. The Jaffa guard tried to twist away, but at the click of Carter's rifle, he froze.

"Bastard wanted to commit romna," John growled, reaching down for a half sphere dangling off their enemy's hip. He ripped it off the belt, the Jaffa cursing at him in Goa'uld.

"Romna?" Jack echoed as he helped Daniel up.

Daniel swallowed. "Death...death call?"

"To bring to death your enemy," Teal'c translated for the young archeologist. He turned towards the other Jaffa with a frown, his eyes narrowed. "He wished to kill himself and take his god's enemy with him. It is a practice I have heard of, but it was in the days when Ra was in power. We do not consider this tactic any more."

Carter breathed. "You mean like kamikaze?"

Jack turned sharply towards the major. "What?"

Holding the device like a baseball, John hefted it in his palm as if weighing it. "This can take out almost a whole city block. You wouldn't even get a warning before it goes. Maybe less than two seconds."

"Oh boy," Daniel murmured, rubbing his throat with a grimace. He took a step back.

John looked over to the archeologist. "How're you doing there?" the captain asked quietly.

Daniel shrugged.

"And how did you get there so fast?" John asked Jack as Teal'c hoisted the Jaffa up. Carter quickly bound the guard's wrists with the strap from her rifle, ignoring the alien's strong words spitting at her face. She backed away, leaving him sitting on a broken stump of a statue. When Teal'c and Carter steadied their weapons at him, the Jaffa finally understood and shut up.

Nodding towards Daniel, the colonel grinned. "He turned on his radio. I thought he was reporting in, but heard that...lovely radio drama and knew something was up." Staring at the guard, Jack frowned. "I take it he's from the same group as those guys?" He pointed to the lined up bodies next to the coverstone.

"Probably." Running a hand through his hair, John breathed out in a whoosh. "I don't know if he had a chance to let Ra know where we are."

"Maybe not. The wall is the key," Daniel remarked, dropping his hand away from his neck. Making a face as he heard his own raspy voice, he pointed to the mirrored expanse. "I don't think they even know they're in an alternate reality. So they didn't try looking for a way back and thought the wall was just part of the decor." Walking to the center of the room, he looked wistfully at the polished surface. "If only we could try it-"

"Look out!" Sam shouted as the Jaffa kicked out, knocking Teal'c in the knees. Surprised, Teal'c staggered back and couldn't do anything when the guard tackled Carter. Jack whipped up his gun, swearing when he couldn't get a clear shot without risking the major. John raced towards him as soon as he realized the Jaffa had yanked a knife out of his boot with his suddenly freed hands, but before the guard could get in a slice, Carter shoved hard, pushing the Jaffa away.

"Ra shom! Ra...con da ro!" the Jaffa howled and abruptly spun around towards Daniel. The archeologist had his gun out, but he was caught off guard when the alien ran right towards him. Stepping back, Daniel fired a warning shot towards the ceiling.

"Ra shom! Ra...con da ro!"

"Shit!" It all happened so fast. Jack barely blinked, and the Jaffa was right in front of his friend, and again there was no good shot. "Daniel! Get out of his way!" He took off after them.

Daniel fired, and it struck the guard in the shoulder. It didn't even faze the enraged alien as he slashed the air with his blade.

"Watch it!" Someone was shouting, but he was too busy to figure out who it was.

"Daniel!" Jack screamed, jerking up his weapon to get a clear shot. Nothing.

The guard got within his personal space before anyone could stop him, the blade lashing out like a whip, slicing the air. Daniel barely had time to jump back before the tip nicked him in the vest, getting caught on the pockets. He felt a fist grabbing him by the collar, and he yelped as they both fell back. Smacking into the floor, inches away from the polished mirror, Daniel could vaguely hear Jack and John rushing towards him.

But the knife coming down caught his attention more.

"Ra shom! Ra...con da ro!"

Doesn't he know anything else to say? Daniel thought as he felt the guard on top of him, rolling away, one fist on his collar to keep him down. Daniel raised his gun, thankfully still in his grip. The guard shook him as he stood, lifting Daniel to his feet, using him like a human shield, knee ramming into his stomach, and his hand flinched. The gun never sounded so loud when it fell to the ground.

The knife flashed.

Daniel heard a gunshot.

He saw the back of the guard's head explode.

And suddenly, the guard was on top of him again.

"Get the guy off him now!" Daniel heard Jack ordering as the heavy weight was pulled away. He heard something like a hiss, and he remembered the larva that must be inside the Jaffa's pouch. As he sat up, breathless, he felt Teal'c slipping arms under his armpits and dragging him away. For once, Daniel didn't protest the protective treatment as he heard the larva snap before a whoosh. He saw Sam's face appear in front of him, asking him something, but he looked over her shoulder to see.

Jack and John stood over the guard's dead body. John's rifle still smoking from firing, and Jack's hand still extended after having thrown his knife.

At the Goa'uld larva. It was severed completely in half.

"Nice," John commented, eyebrow rising at the neat slice.

Jack shrugged. "I like knives. Much neater." He turned around, eyes settling on Daniel. When the young man nodded, his shoulders visibly relaxed.

"I guess," Daniel managed between gulping for air, "I'm not very popular with Ra right now."

The colonel frowned, about to say it wasn't Daniel but Dan, Ra was a little peeved at, but with one look at John's scalding expression, he decided for once to keep his comments to himself.

"Sir," Carter spoke reluctantly. Squeezing Daniel's hand, heartened to feel a responding strong grip in return, she got up and walked over to the dead larva. Swallowing the bile she tasted flooding her mouth, she bent down beside it, fighting the urge to take her boot and stomp down.

"Major? What is it?" Jack asked when she took too long to answer.

"The larva, sir." Sam pointed to the dead carcass.

Daniel got up shakily, nodding at Teal'c gratefully for his support. Heading over, he saw the two parts, one pinned by the edge of Jack's hunting knife.

The other part pressed against the mirrored wall.

"It was trying to escape, perhaps using the wall as a guide to lead it somewhere safer. It touched the surface," Sam murmured.

"It touched the wall..." Daniel concluded, "And it wasn't taken to the other reality."

John froze. "Then...if that wall isn't it..." He turned to look at the Stargate. "How the hell do we get back?"


	13. Chapter 12

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

"You sure?" Hammond asked quietly. He glanced over to Dan who sat there against the upright bed, listening to her explanation.

Janet felt horrible. Her throat was so dry when she spoke it was a strain.

"We tried every possible frequency known to us against the blood samples. We tried various temperatures as well. But there was no change. The nanocytes were still active, and they look like they're..." Janet looked down at the folder in the general's hands. "Like they're multiplying."

Hammond started. "What?"

"They're multiplying. I thought they would have fed off his system or needed direct signals from the devices, but independent, the ratio of the nanocytes to blood cells, red and white, rose a good half percent."

"That's only half a percent," the general said. "Surely—"

"From only a small sample," Dan cut in quietly. "And I have lots more samples in here. So times the rate by that and..." He didn't finish.

Fraiser and Hammond went silent.

Sighing, Dan straightened. "It was worth a try. At least we know for sure it can't be done. I..." He stopped when he heard Fraiser shifting uneasily. "There's more...isn't there?"

"I can't be sure... We could try an aggressive treatment to bring up your immune system, try and have them fight off the nanocytes and maybe slow down the growth, but at the rate it's growing...if the samples show the same increase..."

Dan tapped a hand towards his chest. "In my reality...we used a thing called Neuar to slow down the effects of the devices."

"They must have acted as a stalling agent for the nanocytes."

Lowering his head, Dan whispered. "But they weren't working any longer...not like they used to..."

Fraiser saddened. "Like all drugs, antibiotics, they stop working after long usage. But we may be able to imitate this Neuar you've mentioned."

"But that may not work...right?" the scholar whispered.

Heart sinking, shoulders slumped, she uttered softly, "No...it may not."

Dan took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. "How long?"

Janet sucked in her breath. Puzzled, Hammond looked at her, then at Dan. When he saw the tired acceptance in the young man's face, he stilled, sharply facing the doctor once more.

Dan lifted his head. "Do I at least have a few months? Maybe a year?"

"...Not a year..."

"Oh."

"I'm sorry..." Janet whispered, beginning to hate how loud her infirmary sounded with the intrusive beeping, nurses milling about, and carts being rolled back and forth.

Dan had a fleeting urge to start screaming about how unfair it was, at her, at the general, at the bed if it would help. But he suspected all it would do was make him breathless and maybe even make him pass out, wasting more of the time he'd hoped he had left but now didn't.

What would happen to John?

Dan lifted his head. "Doctor Fraiser? General Hammond?"

Smiling sadly, Dan lowered his voice, making sure they would be the only ones to hear. "Consider it as...a last request...I have a favor to ask." Dan wiped a tear from the corner of his eye before it could trickle down, and he began instructing them in what he needed them to do for his favor.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Setting the bodies aside, studied the larva still left on the floor. Glancing over to Carter, he decided to get it himself.

"Major," he snapped his fingers, wiggling them.

Surprised, Sam silently handed him the glass beaker and tweezers, watching as the colonel strode over to the dead heap and gingerly picked up one part of the dead alien.

Sitting and watching from afar, Daniel couldn't help but shudder at the sight of the dangling Goa'uld larva caught between the tweezers.

He forgot Teal'c had a larva incubating in his pouch. Sure, since he was Jaffa, he would have one, but since Daniel was accustomed to regarding Teal'c as a friend, the term Jaffa had lost some of its meaning.

"Ugh...I think I lost my appetite for spaghetti for the rest of my life," Jack announced loudly as he picked up the other half and wiggled it before he dropped it into the beaker with its companion.

Almost everyone on this team had their close encounters with the slimy aliens. They lost Kawalsky to one of them. Sam had been one of them, although he supposed Tok'ra couldn't really be regarded as the same. And Jack nearly became one of them, courtesy of a certain Goa'uld queen whom he would be content to never mention again. Daniel was more than happy to be left out of the club.

"You okay?" John hunched down, handing him a water bottle. Accepting it, Daniel guzzled down a long drink before answering.

"I am now." Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, Daniel turned away at the sight of the two pieces, sealed inside the beaker. He couldn't help but wonder how something so small, so weak looking could also look so vile and evil, destructive, destroying everything it touched, everything he held dear and loved.

Daniel studied the stern profile of the captain before ducking his head when the other man turned, having caught his scrutiny. Staring at the sealed beaker and the wrinkled, white husk of the larva, his eyes glazed over as he thought of his counterpart, waiting for their news back home. Someone should be able to have family to come back to. Something left to treasure and value. Someone should have something left after the Goa'uld—

"Hey." John shook Daniel's shoulder.

Startled, Daniel jumped with a shout, nearly tripping over the rubble on the ground. Daniel's heel caught the edge of the raised platform, and he landed on top of the coverstone with an "oof".

"Whoa!" Jack went over quickly, giving John a puzzled frown over his shoulder which the captain returned with a shrug. "Hold still. What was in that bottle? Espresso?"

"Sorry," Daniel said in a shaky voice. "I was thinking."

"That was very weird thinking, Jackson, if it got you from here to there," John called out, pointing to where Daniel had been sitting.

"Colonel!"

Both Jack's and John's rifles went up, aiming for whatever was causing Carter's voice to ring out with alarm. Spinning around, they faced the major, her hand pointing to—

"Oh my God..." Daniel straightened in shock.

The wall reflecting their image before was wavering, flickering as if it was a television set going out of focus. No sounds, no hums, its reflection jumped, twisting until it solidified once more to the image of the Stargate and the DHD.

But there was something wrong.

"Where's our reflections?" Carter whispered, approaching the wall.

"It'll only have our reflections if it reflects our reality," Daniel said, his eyes dazed. He walked over, past his teammates and reached out at the mirror. Then, remembering the last time he did such a move, pulled his hand back before he could touch it.

"So...this is how we got through before?" John breathed. "But I don't remember seeing a wall."

"How can we even be sure this is your reality?" Carter pointed out. "If this thing is anything like our mirror, the wall might have reset itself after it was shut off."

"More importantly, how the hell did it turn on by itself?" Jack muttered, arching an eyebrow at Daniel. One by one, the rest of the team zeroed in on Daniel.

Daniel threw open his hands. "I didn't touch it. Honest."

"The wall became active after Daniel Jackson stepped on the platform," Teal'c observed, pointing to the coverstone Daniel had landed on.

"Could be a very large controller for the wall, sir." Carter walked over and jumped on top of the device. Sure enough, the wall wavered.

"Like an on and off switch?" Daniel asked, coming over. He eyed the platform, hunching down to study the numerous carvings of the symbols circling the platform in the order they were listed on the Stargate. Giving it an experimental poke, fingers scratching the contours of the raised symbols, he pursed his lips. Getting up, he stepped on the dais, twisting around to see the wall flicker again. He gave a little "Huh", blinking at the wall, then down to the stone he was standing on with renewed interest. He got off, and the wall stilled. Carter got off as well, then hopped back on, also turning around to verify the reaction and getting the same result which elicited an "Oh" from her. For the next few seconds, the two alternated from getting on it and off, the wall going crazy, flashing their reflection then not.

"Do you...mind?" Jack asked wryly, crossing his arms.

"Yeah...it's giving me a headache," John grumbled, folding his arms as well. He darted a look over to the colonel. The two O'Neills saw they were mimicking each other, and both dropped their arms to their sides quickly.

"Sorry," Carter called out and pulled Daniel off the coverstone. She fished out her meter and waved it over the stone itself. She turned around and did the same to the wall. She whistled. "Readings going off the scale."

"Still safe to stay?" Jack asked with a frown. He didn't like how the meter wailed, almost as if warning them to stay back. Before he knew it, he took a step backwards.

"Should be. It seems to be contained within the wall. If only we had more time to compare with the other mirror before it was destroyed." Sam pocketed the meter. "I could take some additional readings then try some controlled tests—"

"We don't have time for tests," John seethed. He paced around the bodies lined up on the ground. "We only have less than six hours, and you're talking about experiments and readings and—"

"Hey, hey!" Jack shot a glare at his double. "We're not going to send you guys off to some reality if it's not even your own!" Jack jabbed a finger at John. "We are going back, but you're going to have to calm down first!"

"I am calm!" John shouted.

The lightning above rumbled in disagreement.

Running a hand through his hair, Jack grumbled, wondering why this conversation felt too weird. Carter was looking at the wall with her meter as if she wasn't listening. Teal'c suddenly found accompanying Daniel circling around the platform was the most important thing to do. And Jack found himself alone with his counterpart, standing in the center of the room.

"Look..." Jack counted to ten and tried again. "I know time is running short. But we can't go off running in every direction not knowing what to do! We go to the wrong reality and might not know how to get back."

John stared at the Stargate reflected on the wall, his jaw clenched, a muscle twitching in it. Jack understood.

"Doc is watching over him right now, and we've still got," Jack checked his watch, "a little over five hours. We'll make it, okay? Trust me."

John stared at Jack for a long moment. "Trust you?" He gave a funny laugh. "The last person who trusted a Jack O'Neill to keep them safe got those things," the captain gestured angrily at his own forehead, "eating him alive."

Behind them, Daniel tripped over some rubble, and the two men turned, catching a glimpse of Teal'c grabbing him by the arm before he could fall flat on his face. Flustered, Daniel mumbled his thanks, scratching his head as he tapped the coverstone with a finger.

"But," John went on, his eyes sad, "apparently you're doing something right when I didn't." He gazed at Jack with what looked like jealousy. "Guess I really have no choice."

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Pinching the bridge of his nose, Dan sighed, half tempted to ask the guard posted outside Daniel Jackson's office to fetch Doctor Fraiser.

Taking a deep breath, Dan felt around the table and grabbed hold of the tablet again. He fingered the raised text with his tips, mouth moving silently as he tried to read them. He frowned, the symbols not familiar at all. Maybe he needed the second tablet to decipher the whole thing. But then again, how was he supposed to know where the second tablet was if he didn't decipher the code in the first one?

"Damn it," Dan muttered, his head pounding, chest tightening again as it often did when he was getting stressed. Rubbing his chest above his heart, Dan bowed over, forehead on the table and waited for the uncomfortable feeling to subside before continuing.

"Bad?"

Dan nearly fell off the stool he was on until a small hand pressed against the small of his back and steadied him.

Janet felt her eyes sting. She was a doctor, one to give comfort. But to instill such an instinct to flee from her in this man...to think she placed those horrible devices in another human being. No. It wasn't her. It was her alternate self. She didn't do this. She didn't.

"Sorry," Dan said breathlessly. "Startled me."

Janet sat down and took his wrist, checking the pulse.

Dan sat there patiently until she let go, and he swiveled back towards the table and picked up the stone device.

"If you're feeling tired, you should take a break."

Shaking his head, Dan waved the round stone. "I'm fine. I really can't waste any more time. John's going to be back any minute, and we'll be going home. I can't go back without something." Dan winced as his chest stabbed. Gasping, he dropped the tablet abruptly, and his hands went to his chest.

Alarmed, Janet got up and dropped her hands on his shoulders. Dan grabbed one of her hands and squeezed.

"No...I'm okay. Just...give me a second...please..."

"I can get you something for the pain. You could take the sedatives I gave you and try and get some sleep."

Dan shook his head, breathing slowing from the frantic panting before. He withdrew his hand from hers. "I'm fine. It comes and goes. I'm usually okay after it."

"How often?" Janet asked as she stepped away, allowing the man to pick up the tablet.

Dan shrugged.

"Doctor O'Neill—"

"Dan."

"Dan," Janet corrected herself. "At least get some rest first. To catch your breath."

He sighed, shaking his head. "I can't. Don't you understand? I don't have the time. You told me so yourself."

"I also said with an aggressive treatment of antibiotics, we may be able to bring up your white blood cell count and let them combat the nanocytes as if they were—"

"May." Dan lifted his head. "May. Not definitely. Not positively. Only may...or...maybe." He ran a hand over the tablet. "I don't have time to try for maybe, Doctor."

"Janet," Fraiser said softly.

Dan paused. "Janet."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked quietly. Fraiser watched Dan run his fingers over every inch of the stone surface.

Dan smiled. "Actually...you can...can you see if Daniel has any books on his shelves. I can use someone to read some references out loud."

Staring at his wan smile, she swallowed, whispering "Okay" before getting off her stool. Walking over to the shelves, she carefully read the titles out loud, trying very hard to keep her voice steady.

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"Well...it's definitely not an ordinary wall," Carter muttered as she swept her counter over the wall. She wished she could chip some material off for testing, but she didn't know how contact would make it react. Studying the platform a few feet away from her, avoiding looking at the bodies on the ground, she mulled over the connection. "Okay...that turns it on...there were no devices to turn the realities like a dial. Maybe it only goes to their reality?" She sighed.

Teal'c observed the major getting up, glaring at the figures she extracted from her devices.

"Maybe a controller..." Carter muttered as she stalked over to the rooms she'd been exploring before.

"Where are you going?" Teal'c inquired as the major skidded to a halt.

"There should be some sort of device to control this thing." Carter waved a frustrated hand towards the wall.

"It would seem logical to assume so," the Jaffa agreed as he trailed behind her. Carter grunted, her mind already on the task at hand. He arched an eyebrow at the barrage of words his comrade was muttering which sounded oddly like O'Neill. He said nothing, however, as he followed her into the smaller room.

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"I don't believe it."

John looked up from his post by the door to see Daniel Jackson gawking at the wall he was translating. For a moment, Jackson looked like his brother. Momentarily, he grinned to himself, caught in the illusion.

"What have you got there, Mutt?"

Daniel blinked at the unusual nickname, turning his head towards the captain in time to see the smile fade. He pretended not to notice and gestured toward the inscriptions.

"I think I finally figured it out. These walls...they're almost like some sort of...chronicle or a journal, recording their last days in this structure. One half details some kind of device, although I don't see anything which mentions the wall outside." Daniel waved sadly at the cracked panels further back in the chamber. "That might have been where the instructions were for it. They appear to have suffered damage from the quakes." A low rumble under his feet attested that. "It says this was where it all began."

"Huh?" Jack entered the chamber, back from patrolling the area, pausing as he looked up towards the ceiling, almost half expecting to see floating holographic projections of molecules above him. He lowered his sight back to Jackson, arching an eyebrow. "This is not that meaning of life stuff again, is it, Daniel?"

"No, no, no," Daniel said impatiently as he paced in front of the inscriptions, lost in thought. "The people who were here uncovered a way to see all ways."

"Huh?" John exchanged a look with himself, found it to be odd staring at his own face and quickly turned back towards Daniel. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Daniel shot them both an exasperated look, breathing through his nose. "Gee, you're both impatient, aren't you?" He rolled his eyes, took a deep breath, not catching the half smile on Jack's face and went on.

"We encountered this quantum mirror on another planet in my reality, and at first I thought it was originally from there, but then there were no explanations on how it worked and all. I mean, there were no notes, no records of instructions of any kind, not even a chart. Just tags on stuff as if labeling them for origin. So I began to think maybe the planet was really some sort of lab or outpost where they would archive their findings. There were so many different types of styles and materials in the rooms. It would fit the pattern. It's usually the case with most societies to store their knowledge in some physical for—"

"Daniel. Yadda."

Daniel blinked. Realizing he had two Jack O'Neills to explain things to now, Daniel mentally chided himself and went slowly. "Sorry…Jack, if what I'm reading is correct…this planet…this place was where the mirror came from."

"Here?" The colonel frowned again, looking around the crumbling chamber. "You'd think they would have taken better care of the place."

Daniel sighed. "It said, from what I can tell, they left here to…I'm not sure about this line, I mean the text—"

"Doctor Jackson."

John's even voice came close to Jack's usual "hurry up and say it in English" tone. He glanced over to Jack just to be sure he wasn't imagining things.

Pushing up his glasses, Daniel gazed at them very seriously. "They left to warn the others."

Jack paused. "They?"

"The people of this planet, Jack. Somehow, they discovered a way to see other realities. They saw the other realities as a sort of a...responsibility of theirs and left to tell their own…selves about the enemy." Daniel's eyes held a touch of despair as he remembered the words. He touched the wall, fingertips brushing gently at the text as he quoted it. "After a big fire from the sky and unable to keep the flames away for much longer, the last of the elders left to meet themselves and tell of the great fire in the sky."

"Goa'uld?" Jack asked quietly.

Daniel shrugged. "It would be just like the Goa'uld to destroy something as beautiful as this." His tone was bitter as he scanned the crumbling walls and felt the tremors under their feet. "They must have come here, tried to take this planet, and what they couldn't take—"

"They destroyed," John finished. His face was grim, eyes narrowing as he stared at the walls of text.

Daniel rubbed his eyes with his thumb, continuing in a heavy voice. "They sacrificed their own lives to warn the others…as many as they could."

The three men fell silent as the words hung heavy in the air. Lightning flashed occasionally, highlighting the chamber's carved lettering, stretching shadows until they looked like specters on the walls.

"But…" Jack suddenly found himself unable to raise his voice any higher than a whisper. "What about the forty eight hour thing? They never came back. There's no one here."

"Sir?"

The three men turned around and found Carter standing there with Teal'c. She lifted her hand up, opening her palm to reveal what looked like thin wire brass rings. Daniel muttered something and went over to take one.

"We found these in the other chambers we hadn't gotten a chance to explore. There are more rooms within those rooms, too many to begin to count. Teal'c found these on tables. They were beside what looked like…survival packs."

"There were many score marks on the walls of these chambers," Teal'c intoned. "Perhaps made by a staff weapon." He motioned toward the door they were standing near. "But they do not appear to have been made by the Jaffa we encountered."

Carter nodded, agreeing with the assessment. "The blast marks do look old although I can't hazard a guess offhand how long ago." She held one circlet up between her thumb and index finger. Tilting her head to examine it at a different angle, she turned the wire loops and mused, "These were all identical. There was a pile of them scattered all over. Maybe they were passed around, and these were left behind."

"I do not recognize them as Goa'uld," Teal'c volunteered.

"What are they?" Jack asked as he eyed the metal objects. He took one and compared it to his hand. "Looks like our hands can fit through them." The colonel made a fist, sizing it to the metallic loop.

"What the other half said. It makes better sense now," Daniel muttered as he turned the thing in his fingers. Puzzled, Sam shrugged towards the colonel.

"Jack, how many hours left?" Daniel asked abruptly.

The older man nearly jumped when he checked his watch. "Shit. Two. Okay, we'd better get a move on. We'll figure out the rest later. Daniel—"

"No."

Jack stopped. "What?"

The young man slipped the circlet around his left wrist before Jack could stop him. Almost instantly, the metal shrank, contracting until it was snug, right below his wrist bone. Teal'c started and tried to tug Daniel's hand close to him to pull the device off.

"Daniel!" Sam stepped forward to stop him when the young man gasped, his other hand reaching up to grab the self bound wrist.

John grabbed Daniel's hand, not even realizing he'd reacted out of instinct, just as the others surrounded him. "Jackson! Damn it! Why the hell did you are you doing?"

"No…wait…" Daniel gritted his teeth. He clenched his fist as the wire tightened around his wrist. Jack swore, jerking the wrist out of John's hands toward him. He could see tendons standing out like white cords, skin red and hot as the wire pinched Daniel's wrist.

"Daniel, it's cutting off your circulation. Carter, find me something to pry them off—"

"Wait!" Daniel snapped, pulling his hand away.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" the captain snapped, reaching over to yank him closer, but Jack suddenly stepped forward.

"Wait," Jack said quietly. He looked at the silent plea in his friend's eyes, wincing at the pain flashing in the pupils. "I think Daniel's trying to show us something."

"Yeah! How his hand's going to be cut off any second!" John snarled

"Please." Daniel winced as the pressure increased a bit. " I know what I am doing." He turned his eyes on Jack, silently begging. "The walls, they had text speaking of how the people could survive the…consequences of their possible actions. I didn't know what they meant at first, but these could be to stop..." he hissed as the bracelet squeezed harder.

"Entropic cascade effect," Sam guessed.

Daniel nodded. He made a face as the bracelet began to tingle. "I think…they had these on them…to prevent that…oh…" His knees buckled, pitching him forward. Teal'c caught him before he could hit the floor.

"You okay?" Jack demanded as he and Carter went over and eased him comfortably sitting down. Teal'c and John stood over him anxiously, staring at Daniel as they waited. Sam brushed her palm across Daniel's hand as he hissed in pain.

Jack leaned closer, touching his arm with a finger. He studied Jackson worriedly. "Daniel, you all right?"

"I think so…." Daniel smiled wanly, lines creasing his forehead. "Ouch."

Jack shook his head, exasperated. "I'm giving it one minute, Daniel. One minute. Then I'm getting Carter to clip it off you." He scowled as he saw the fingers on Daniel's right hand twitch in reaction to the tightness. "Just one minute. Don't make me regret this."

"'Kay…" Daniel took a deep breath and then paused. Surprise flitted across his face, and he looked down at his hand. "Oh."

"What?" Sam leaned forward anxiously.

"It's gone." Daniel flexed his fingers, the wire loop suddenly snug against his wrist bone but comfortable. "It stopped hurting." He glanced up to Jack. "You think it worked?"

Jack's jaw clenched. "We'll know when we get back." He studied the other circlet thoughtfully. Then, after a moment's hesitation, Jack grabbed the other one and slipped it on his right wrist before anyone could stop him. He swore softly when it began to squeeze.

"Sir!"

"O'Neill!"

"W-we…wouldn't know...god damn, son of a bitch!" the colonel swore as they began to pinch, "...for sure unless we both try, right?" Jack gritted his teeth, barely feeling Daniel's hand on his elbow.

Sam glanced worriedly at him. Reluctantly, she nodded.

John could see the pain as the devices pinched their flesh. He felt a lump in his throat and croaked, "Thank you."

Daniel looked up surprised. "Huh?"

But Jack understood. He nodded. "You're welcome."

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The alarms rang out suddenly, startling both Dan and Janet. Swearing strongly, an odd sight to behold for Janet, Dan dropped the tablet on the table, clamping his hands over his ears.

"God, how can you stand all this noise?" he complained, wincing as the chaos rung in his ears painfully. "Damn it!" he swept an arm out, accidentally striking the pile of books, useless books Janet had helped pull out. "God damn it!" Tumbling away from him, the books crashed to the floor. Dan sat there, hands on the table edge, head bowed as he heaved.

Worried, Janet came forward, but Dan's waving her away when he heard her footsteps.

"No, no. I'm okay. Just got a little...frustrated." He shook his sore hand, the one that had struck the books.

Janet frowned when she saw the light bruise coloring the back of his hand and took the hand into hers. Dan froze when he felt her stroke the skin, checking the surface.

"This is going to turn a nasty color later on for you," Fraiser commented.

"I really don't care," Dan cut her off brusquely. He slid off the stool and would have fallen had she not grabbed onto his elbow tightly. He jerked his arm away from her, holding onto the table. Standing there, over the desk, he took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be...rude...I know what is wrong with me. I can't think about it right now. There's no time."

"You could be becoming anemic," Janet argued, reaching out to touch his hand to prove her point. "Even your nails are discolored at the edges. That's why you're bruising so easily right now. I can get something for you, boost up your blood cell count and—"

Sighing, Dan shook his head, groaning as a voice announced incoming travelers which added to the bedlam of the alarms ringing. "Just give me something to keep going."

"I can't do that."

"Yes, you can!" Dan spun around towards her voice, staggering a bit until he could regain his balance. "You said I'm anemic? Fine! Give me something for it. You said I need rest? How about something so I won't constantly need to? I can't stop. I can't waste any more time!" He lowered his voice, hands open, pleading. "Please. You must understand I can't stop. I have to go back and help my friends. I can't leave them there to die."

Placing her hands on his shaking shoulders, she whispered "You can't be wasting what's left of your life away either. We can try a few more things, maybe return to the place where we encountered the nanocytes before in our reality and..."

"Don't think as a doctor for a moment," Dan pleaded, turning his face up to her, his blank eyes staring at a space over her head. Janet tightened her grip on his shoulders without realizing. "Please. Think as another human being. I can't sit around while everyone else is helping out. I'll be damned if I spend the last days wasting away on some bed while my world is ripped apart by those bastards!" Dan moved his hands up to her wrists and kept them there. "Please..." He could barely stand upright. "You owe me..."

Janet reeled back as if she'd been slapped. Dan, realizing his mistake, dropped his hands, mouth open in shock.

"Oh God...I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way. I...I'm not accusing you of—"

"I do owe you..." Janet said hoarsely. "Even if I know I didn't do this...I owe it to her...my double...to make amends."

"Then...then you'll help me?"

"It goes against everything I believe," Janet whispered. She closed her eyes and wondered briefly if her counterpart...if there was anything remaining inside to weep at the terrible things her body was forced to do as Hathor's host. She opened them again and stared at Dan.

"I'll do it."

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"General," Jack greeted, gritting his teeth as he walked down the ramp. He massaged his right wrist where the thin wire was wrapped. Although it had stopped hurting after he dialed up the Stargate, just looking at the pinched flesh, red around the circlet was painful enough.

"Colonel O'Neill," Hammond frowned as he saw there were only the three of them. "Where are Major Carter and Teal'c?"

"They stayed behind to continue searching the rooms," Jack said, nodding behind him to the Stargate. "We got a couple of Ra's lap dogs back there. We're going to need another team to go and get them back here for the labs to check them out."

"We needed to come back first, but they'll be following in another hour or so," Daniel explained.

"What's this?" Hammond exclaimed when he caught sight of the thin bracelets on both Daniel's and Jack's wrists. "What's going on?"

"We found these in one of the rooms," Jack grated out as medics hurried towards them, briskly checking their vitals and reflexes. He snarled at one of them when the medic had the gall to try and get a pressure cuff around his arm. "Do you mind?"

"We're okay," Daniel was quick to reassure. "I believe these devices were used to counter the entropic cascade syndrome. We found text backing the idea that the wall is really a giant quantum mirror. In fact, maybe even the origin of the mirror we had." He glanced over to John. The captain was staring behind General Hammond searching for something with a worried frown. Daniel followed the gaze to the space behind the general and realized something. "Uh...where's Doctor O'Neill?"

Hammond coughed, turning his head towards the heavy blast doors. "Doctor O'Neill went to your office to see if he could help out with the tablet."

"How did the tests go?" John said bluntly.

Hammond blinked, suddenly finding himself circled by three anxious looking faces. He opened his mouth, then remembered Dan O'Neill's request and found himself unprepared to say the lie he had promised to say. So instead, he only said, "He's in Doctor Jackson's office waiting for you."

John brushed past him without asking for leave and was out the door before anyone could stop him. Jack gave Hammond an apologetic shrug. The general nodded, motioning them to go ahead and he watched Jack and Daniel rushing after him.

Standing there in the embarkation room, Hammond regretted promising Dan O'Neill to say not one word.

Slowly, ignoring the curious stares of the technicians lingering in the large room, he turned on his heels and strode out. He had work to do. It was time to do it.

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If he looked foolish running down the hallways with his backpack still slung over his shoulder, John didn't care. He wanted to tell Dan what they found, tell him—

Tell him what?

His boots slowed at the last hallway. Tell him he could stay? John looked around the base. He knew Dan wouldn't do it. Dan was too stubborn to stay behind. And he did need to relay his message to the commander.

But John could tell them.

_Dan will never go for it_, John thought as he stood in front of Daniel Jackson's office. He stared at the nameplate on the door and touched the name carved into the metal. If those things really work...

"Captain O'Neill?"

"John?"

Turning around, John was surprised to see Dan standing there, half supported by Doctor Fraiser. His brother had his head tilted to the side, puzzled as to why his brother wasn't answering.

"I'm...I'm back," John found himself stammering. He scanned Dan up and down, noting his brother was dressed in the jumpsuit and a jacket now, zipped up to the top. "You cold?"

Dan ignored the question as he shuffled over to him, hand pressed against the wall to guide him, his other hand in Fraiser's for support. John looked down at the white hand and nodded curtly towards Janet, reminding himself she was Janet Fraiser and not the monster he knew in his world.

"How did it go?" Dan asked, not realizing what was going on between the two.

"They think they know how to get back to our reality. It looks like it was the wall."

Dan frowned. "Wall?"

"There was some sort of wall...I don't remember seeing it when we first got here, but-" John paused, seeing his brother sway. "What are you doing out here? I thought General Hammond said you were in Doctor Jackson's office working on the tablet." He frowned disapprovingly at the younger man. "And you should be resting. How did the tests go?"

"They're working on it." Dan pulled his hand away from John's grip and leaned against the wall heavily.

John was shocked to find a dark bruise on the back of his brother's hand. "What happened?" he demanded.

"I got a little clumsy," Dan said in a tired voice. "That's why Doctor Fraiser decided to stay and help me."

"Really?" John pinned his gaze on Janet. The doctor mutely nodded.

"I feel fine, John. Doctor Fraiser gave me some stuff, and I feel a little better." Dan gave a small smile as he tried to get past his brother to enter the office. "Now, if we're ready to leave, I'd better get my…"

"We're not going just yet," Jack spoke up as he slowed to a stop near them.

John spied his double and Jackson standing a few feet away and touched Dan's elbow to stop him. "There was one other thing...we found something that may end the forty eight hour thing."

"Entropic cascade," Daniel spoke up, lifting his wrist. Janet sighed, coming over to take the wrist to examine.

"And when did you do this?" Fraiser muttered as Jack discreetly snuck behind her to explain to John and Dan.

Flushing, Daniel tried to pull his arm away. The doctor held on fast so he relented, letting her probe the flesh around the ring. "Um...just before."

"And you put it on even when you didn't know how it would affect you?" Janet glared at Jackson, annoyed. "What do my staff and I keep telling you about trying alien devices you know nothing about?"

"But Jack did, too," Daniel protested, almost sounding like he was whining.

Jack froze mid-step and spun around glaring at Daniel. "Thanks a lot."

John arched an eyebrow at the glower Fraiser was giving to the two of them. "Okay, into the infirmary. Both of you. Now."

Daniel waved towards John and Dan. "But we need to see if these things—"

"Go. Now. Come on. Both of you." Janet pushed Daniel a little before focusing on Jack. She shook a finger at the colonel who scowled.

Jack grudgingly followed, making a face behind Janet's back. He motioned John and Dan to come along. "We could wait in Daniel's office and see if—"

"We need to take some tests and samples, make sure those things aren't disrupting any bodily functions. It's for your own good." Janet said calmly, slowing down to assist Dan. But at John's look, she dropped the idea and picked up speed instead.

"How is sticking a needle up my butt for my own good?" Jack complained. When Janet didn't answer, he looked over his shoulder and saw John, his arm wrapped around Dan's waist to help him walk. He sobered and said nothing else. Instead, he hurried to reach the infirmary.


	14. Chapter 13

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

"Well?"

Daniel shrugged. Sam and Teal'c had returned to the SGC, leaving another team in their place on the planet to find out more about the mirror surface. While they thought the DHD platform activated the mirror portal, no one was sure whether or not they would be able to return home to their own reality from the other side. Carter was programming a probe to automatically go through the portal and activate the Stargate from their side to try later on. Hopefully, if it worked, Dan and John would be returning home soon.

"Twenty minutes," Jack said quietly, glancing at his own watch, watched the second hand tick away, all too aware of the medic staff lingering nervously around the curtained off area. He knew the same scenario was happening back in their counterparts' room, John preferring to wait with Dan instead.

Daniel and Jack, seated on adjoining gurneys, were waiting for the countdown. Forty-eight hours would soon be up.

Daniel sighed, swinging his legs dangling down the side of the gurney.

"What?" Jack heard the sound, but he didn't turn his head.

"What if I'm wrong?"

"You're not."

"What if it's supposed to be worn by them?"

Jack shook his head. "I doubt it, but Carter got them outfitted with a set anyway. Wouldn't make sense. I mean…if those guys were going to their…other realities…doesn't sound like it would make any sense for them to be looking for their doubles just to have them wear those things. Be easier if they wore them before going through and not have to worry about it."

Daniel grinned. "How scientific a theory, Colonel O'Neill."

"I have my moments, Doctor Jackson." Jack sobered and looked at his watch again. "Eighteen minutes."

Rubbing his hands across his face, the thin metal brushing against his cheek, Daniel sighed once more.

"What?" The colonel eyed his friend with mild concern. "Daniel…what is it?"

"Nothing."

"Bull."

The archeologist blinked.

"There's something bothering you. It's been distracting you from this mission since day one. I don't like it. So spit it out."

Daniel shrugged.

"Humor me…it'll make the time go by faster."

Picking at the sheet covering the gurney he was sitting on, Daniel mumbled, "I was just wondering how similar Doctor…Doctor O'Neill's life was."

Jack tilted his head towards his friend and frowned. "Huh?"

"What happened to make it so…different? Was it something he did? Or didn't do?" Daniel suddenly looked very young, very unsure.

"Captain O'Neill…I mean…John…said they met at a park," Jack murmured, unconsciously copying Daniel's stance. He looked at Daniel out of the corner of his eye. "Ring any bells?"

Daniel shrugged again.

"I was thinking…Groves Park in East Chicago…around…1971?" Jack noted Daniel's back stiffening, the black T-shirt stretching across his shoulders. "I was maybe…fifteen then? And you?"

"Six." Daniel's voice was soft and low. "A little over six."

"Sounds about right." Jack paused. "Never told me you'd been to Chicago around that time. Visiting?"

"No." Daniel coughed and looked at his watch. "Thirteen minutes."

"Daniel—"

"I really don't want to talk about it right now, Jack," he interrupted. Daniel gave a reassuring smile. "It doesn't pertain to any of this, okay? I didn't mean to bring it up."

"Daniel."

"Jack." The older man stopped at the tone. Daniel wasn't looking at him, but Jack heard the silent plea.

It was asking him to back off.

"Okay. I'll leave this alone," Jack answered solemnly. _For now_, the promise hung unvoiced between them.

"Ten minutes," Daniel said, pretending he never heard Jack at all.

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"How're you doing?" John asked quietly, seated on the edge of the bed.

Dan smiled tightly, sitting up on the mattress, thick blankets tucked around him. "Like I'm waiting for that damn letter accepting me to UCLA." Dan chuckled. Then he winced, unable to hide the pain from his face, his hand sneaking up to massage the skin around the devices.

"Bad?" John asked his brother quietly. The young man shrugged. John slipped a hand behind his brother's neck and massaged it gently, his fingers kneading the nape in small circles. He watched the tired lines around Dan's eyes and mouth smooth out a little.

"How's that? Better?"

Dan nodded wearily.

"Maybe it's time for another dose."

Shaking his head, Dan slipped his hands under the covers. "It isn't. It's too soon."

"Danny…you've needed them sooner and sooner each time now."

"I can…wait it out." Dan reassured him in a breathless voice. But Dan's fists, unsuccessfully hiding under the blankets, betrayed his deception.

John looked away from the hands, letting himself believe in the lie for now. "How about something to eat then?" he asked abruptly. The captain reached over to the tray that was brought to him and selected a dinner roll.

Sighing, Dan felt the soft texture of the bread by his fingers and curled them around the morsel, squishing it to a small ball. "John, I told you I'm not hungry."

"Just a little bite."

"It's not going to make much of a difference to me."

"You need to keep your strength—"

"To do what? To wait for what?" Dan snapped angrily. "I'm just delaying the inevitable!"

"You're going to get better!" John sat up straighter.

"Sure," Dan said bitterly. "We'll just go up to that bitch and say we're sorry, and she'll take these off me."

"Stop it." John grabbed his brother firmly by the shoulders. He refrained from shaking him though. "Just stop it! I told you. I'll find a way! There is a way to get them off. I'm sure of it! You promised you would hang on until then."

Dan jerked away from John. "I'm tired, John! I'm just s-so tired of trying to keep up. Of trying to take one more step." He bowed his head. "It's just too hard." He felt John's hand rubbing his arm. His voice dropped to barely a whisper. John had to practically lean over him to hear. "I'm…I'm just so tired, John."

"You want to give up?" John snarled.

Dan shook his head wearily

"Is that it?" John grasped his wrist tightly.. "You want to just give up and die? After coming so far? We're almost there, Dan. You said it yourself! If we get rid of Ra when he comes…that's it…it'll be over."

"I don't know if I can wait that long. I'm…sorry, John."

"I don't want to hear that!"

"Well, you're going to have to!" Dan shot back. He slumped, exhausted. Dan shook his head. "Look at me…I can't even have an argument with you without the room tilting under me." He bit his lower lip, self-disgust marring his pale face. "Just get me back home so I can pass the message to Sammy. Then…just leave me."

John closed his eyes, pressing his face against the wall.

"You can't be constantly looking over your shoulder to see if I'm okay," Dan continued on. "I'm just one person. There are billions, John."

"You're not just one person," the captain answered in a hard voice.

"Maybe not to you…but in the large scheme of things—"

"You would still not be just one person, Mutt."

Dan's voice choked. "You're such a stubborn ass."

John wrapped an arm around Dan's shoulder and pulled him closer. "Promise me…you'll stick around, okay?"

The young man leaned his head tiredly against John's shoulder.

Dropping his chin against Dan's hair, John whispered "You're all I've got left, Danny. You know that. You go, and that's it. I'll be alone."

Dan's voice cracked, and he tried to pull away. "John, you'll be okay. Don't tell me you're not going to be. Please don't put that on my shoulders. _Please_."

Tightening his grip, making sure Dan didn't slip away, John whispered in a harsh tone. "I'm not saying anything that's not true."

"That's blackmail."

"Promise me."

"Don't do this, John. For God's sake, please don't do this to me."

"Promise me." John whispered ferociously.

Shaking his head, locks of hair tangling under John's chin, Dan swallowed a sob. "I'll hold on…for as long as I can…That's all I can give you." Dan's voice was barely a whisper.

"It'll be enough." John squeezed gently.

Dan sighed, his head rolling against the shoulder. He sat there, letting John run his hand up and down his back, wishing it would ease the pain as it did before. But it didn't. His skin felt overly sensitive, and the fingers trailing up and down his spine felt like lit matches scalding his skin instead. But he didn't say anything and only sat there, pretending it made him feel better. His blank eyes opened and stared outward. "H-how long?"

"Six minutes."

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"Sir?" Carter poked her head into the curtained off area. She blinked at the sight of the two men, both sitting glumly cross-legged on the gurneys, heads in hands like scolded children. The corner of her mouth tugged upwards. "Forty-eight hours is almost up, sir," she said solemnly.

"I know," Jack muttered, still resting his head in his hands. He darted a look over to her, seeing Teal'c standing behind her. "You guys got anything?"

"We have brought back many items from P9H-521," Teal'c spoke up from behind Carter. "They may shed light on how the wall functions."

"I guess we should start calling it a quantum mirror now," Sam commented.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall," Jack grumbled under his breath, "Who's the most screwed up of them all?"

"I was not aware of this version of Snow White, O'Neill," Teal'c remarked, raising an eyebrow.

"I made it up—wait a minute...you've seen Snow White?" Jack sat up, surprised.

Sam grinned crookedly. "When we were visiting Cassandra at Janet's place a few months back. General Hammond and his grandchildren were there as well. Remember? You were burning burgers with Ferretti, and everyone's kids were in the living room watching television."

"It was most amusing," the Jaffa said, nodding. "I rejoiced when the queen perished. It was quite interesting."

Waggling his eyebrows, Jack chuckled. "Dare I ask whose idea it was to bring the tape?"

Daniel mumbled something under his breath.

Sam chuckled. "Don't look at me, sir. I brought in Thelma and Louise and Top Gun, but the kids wanted to see Snow White."

Turning to gawk at Daniel, Jack pointed at him. "You?"

"There wasn't anything else left in the store," Daniel mumbled, muffled inside his hands.

Sam was about to say something else when someone's watch began to beep from outside the curtained off area.

"Time's up," Jack said quietly.

Daniel checked his own body thoughtfully. He poked himself on the chest and took a deep breath. "It seems sort of anticlimactic. I don't feel any...different."

"Well...if it was to affect anyone, it would be Captain O'Neill and his brother," Carter reminded them.

Chewing his lower lip, Daniel eyed Jack with concern. "You don't think...?"

Jack was already off the gurney, waving back the nurses who surged forward to examine them. "Let's find out, shall we?"

Daniel and the others were out the room after Jack before any of the nurses could get Doctor Fraiser.

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Watching the clock tick away on the wall, his heart pounding fast as if he was running, he didn't think he could relax enough to drift away. But he must have, because he felt someone shaking his shoulder.

Opening his eyes, his hand lashed out quickly, about to strike when he saw her face before he heard Dan call out to him.

Lowering his hand, John mumbled an apology to the stark-faced Doctor Fraiser.

"Came in to tell you forty-eight hours is up." Janet studied the two carefully. "How do you feel?"

John rubbed his eyes and grunted. "Feel the same."

"Same here," Dan piped up, unable to see John's sad expression. "Does that mean...we're safe from this thing?"

"Looks like it," Jack said from the door.

John found the SG-1 team clustered around the door, looking very cramped pressed against the narrow frame, peering inside.

"So...we get going then, huh?" Dan asked in a hopeful voice. John looked at him with narrowed eyes. "I mean...we need to get back over there as soon as possible. There's no telling how long these things will last for us."

"Probably for a good long time," Carter spoke up. "They're quite amazing, actually. I have a few left. Maybe we can spare one or two to break apart and see how they work. To think something so small can possibly control the—"

"Carter!" Jack called out, exasperated. "Look, now is not the time to go Einstein on us! They work. That's what's important."

"So what now?" John asked.

"I guess we'd better plan how we're going to get over to your base and contact the Asgards." Jack crossed his arms, leaning against the threshold.

Dan started to get up when Janet stopped him.

"I would recommend you stay here and rest," Fraiser said, one hand on his leg to still him.

Dan scowled. "I should be there to hear the plans."

John jumped in before anyone else could. "I'll update you on what's going on. She's right. You need some rest."

"But I feel fine—"

"You'll be doing a lot when we go back, and I doubt you'll get enough sleep there," John soothed, ignoring the others as he leaned over Dan. "I'll tell you all about it when I get back."

Dan reached out and snagged a corner of John's sleeve. "You'll be back?"

"I promise. Get some sleep."

Sighing, Dan eased himself down on the bed. "I doubt I'll be able to get any sleep now," he confessed. "I'm all ready to go."

Janet pulled open a drawer in the end table and took out a small bottle. "There's still the sedatives if you really—"

"No," Dan said sharply. "I need to be able to stay alert."

Staring at Dan for a moment, Janet nodded and slipped the bottle back in the drawer.

Jack cleared his throat, hating to interrupt, but he knew time was running short. He knew this wasn't the moment to hedge decisions. "We'd better get started. Captain?"

"Coming," John murmured as he watched Dan draw up his covers over himself. The captain studied the shut drawer for a moment, turned back to pat Dan on the arm and followed after the others, leaving Dan and Janet behind.

Gulping, Dan tensed, hands going up to clutch his own arms. Then, a hiss of pain escaped Dan's lips, and he curled up on his side, trying desperately to hold it in, fearing John was nearby enough to hear. Janet was sitting next to him in an instant.

"Are you okay?"

Dan hissed, arms wrapping around his middle, breathing in short gulps. Vaguely, he heard Janet picking up the phone, and he rolled around to catch her arm. "No...Please...I'll be okay in a second."

"No, you won't. The shot of morphine isn't working. It's burning off faster than I anticipated."

"Give me another dose then."

Janet sounded shocked. "I can't do that! It's too early and—"

"I'm burning off the drug faster than it should," Dan reasoned. "So I can't overdose on it."

"We don't know that for sure."

"Back to doctor again, eh...Doctor?" Dan smiled sadly.

"Get some sleep," Janet would only say and sat there, watching him nod wearily, turn on his side and stare blindly at the wall, knees drawn up in pain.

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Hammond was beginning to feel like he spent more time in the meeting room than he did his office. Normally, he would have appreciated the time away from his paperwork and the phones constantly ringing off the hook from Washington. Hammond was a man of old battlegrounds, used to the smell of smoke more than the filtered air. But lately, the meeting room was used to discuss yet another battle, another conflict, and the assigning of teams to unknown planets with the possibilities of them never returning.

Suddenly his nice office with all his medals hanging on the walls was looking better every day.

"I've spoken with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and they agree we need to release as many resources as we can spare to help you, Captain O'Neill. SG-1 will be accompanying you once we've established how the quantum wall works." Hammond studied the soldier from across the table. John looked a bit stunned.

"I...thank you..." John managed.

"Told you," Jack grinned satisfactorily. Jack leaned back into his chair, folding his arms. "I told you...we're the good guys...besides...I like traveling."

Sam somehow stopped herself from rolling her eyes as she flipped open her folder. "Anyway, with these devices they're wearing…" She lifted a similar loop for show. "We can keep trying to figure out if the wall works without such a tight schedule."

John shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "Uh..."

Everyone turned their attention to him.

"That's not quite...necessarily...uh...true." For some reason, John looked very uncomfortable, fidgeting in his chair as if he was itching to go somewhere. An expression oddly familiar to General Hammond. "I may have left out a small, small detail somewhere."

_"General Hammond, sir." O'Neill kept his voice flat, emotionless, pure military, but Hammond caught a worried look at the nuke behind him. "I regret to inform you that my report wasn't entirely...accurate."_

"A small...detail?" Jack echoed, swinging around to look at John. "How _small_ of a detail?"

Hammond sat back in his seat, waiting.

"Uh..." The captain squirmed in his seat. "Ra-is-coming-back-in-six-days-to-execute-me-and-Dan-and-it's-the-best-opportunity-to-assassinate-him-but-no-one-on-our-side-knows-yet," John mumbled it in one breath.

_Some things never change_, Hammond sighed to himself as Jack exclaimed, "What?"

"Six days? You mean Ra was never orbiting your planet?" Daniel asked hastily before Jack could bellow out something else.

"Ra never stays in one place for too long. He comes by, collects more slaves, returns some, and gets his...dues."

"Dues?" Sam spoke up.

"Homage to their gods," Teal'c said, his brow furrowing. The Jaffa's eyes darkened. "In Chulak, my people are required to do the same for Apophis."

Daniel stared off to a spot behind Jack, his voice low. "Usually, a tribute to the gods in ancient times meant sacrifices of either animals or people, precious metals, food, herbs, and...wives..." His voice hitched on the last part, and he coughed. Silently, he reached for a glass of water.

"Times haven't changed much," John said. He sat there staring at Daniel, the young man drinking down the water in two long gulps. "The snake in charge is Jermak, one of Ra's generals and Seth—"

"What?" Now Sam was the one who shouted.

Baffled, John arched an eyebrow at her.

"Seth was found hiding out on our planet," Daniel explained. "He's...er...sort of dead now..." He fumbled with his empty glass, suddenly finding it fascinating.

"She killed him," Jack pointed to Sam. The major glared at him. "We came, we bowed, and she beat his ass to the next lifetime."

John looked confused, wondering why Carter flushed furiously.

Catching his expression, Hammond decided to clue John in. "SG-1 went in on reconnaissance after one of our allies, the Tok'ra told us of Seth possibly hiding out here on Earth."

"Tok'ra," John murmured.

Daniel tried to help out. "Against—"

"Against Ra, I know," John cut the archeologist off. Daniel blinked in surprise.

Coughing, Hammond continued. "We found him hiding in the United States, controlling a cult. Colonel O'Neill and his team went in with the exception of Teal'c and...eliminated Seth."

"That's one way of putting it," Jack muttered. He shrugged sheepishly when he saw Hammond frowning. "Sorry, sir."

"Sam used a ribbon device and...um...killed him," Daniel explained, shifting in his seat, looking over to the major worriedly, wondering if it was okay to say something about it at all.

Confused, John inspected Carter with a frown. "Sorry, are we talking about the same ribbon device? You know, the one with the metal glove and the gem in the center?" He flexed his own hand, pointing to his left palm.

"One and the same," Jack quipped. "Very nasty toy."

"Very," Daniel agreed, wincing. He'd tasted the agonizing energy of the ribbon device enough times to instill an instinct to duck when he saw one now.

The captain still looked confused. "I thought only the Goa'uld can use those things."

"Or those who were once host to a Goa'uld," Teal'c volunteered.

Daniel, seeing Sam stiffening, kicked the Jaffa in the ankle beneath the table. Teal'c looked down under the table, then at Daniel, arching an eyebrow. Daniel waved a hand towards his neck, signaling to say no more, but the Jaffa got more confused, and the eyebrow rose higher. Jack cleared his throat, and Daniel looked up, realizing everyone was watching him.

Carter shrugged, uncomfortably aware of John O'Neill studying her with a slight frown, trying to brush the mention away. Even now, she didn't like to remember the feel of the ribbon device; it echoed too much of what had been inside her before, of another voice taking over her body and mind. It also reminded her that the same uninvited voice died to spare her life. The empty ache nudged inside her again as she thought of how it felt like something was ripped inside her, something she didn't even know she had until it was gone.

Daniel discreetly tapped her knee from under the table, and Sam looked up to find everyone staring at her. "Anyway," she fumbled to get the conversation back on track. "What was Seth's role in the invasion?"

"Seth is a loyal right hand man for Ra. Seth is more than happy to jump in for his worshipness, wagging his damn tail, to do his dirty work," John spoke abruptly. "I was keeping him under surveillance until I heard about Dan being recaptured." More like doing his bidding by his side, pretending servitude. John hunched forward in his chair, staring across at General Hammond. "He came out of nowhere after the first initial strike and led the attack on the Cheyenne Mountain base." He stared at everyone else's hands on the table. "He must have been hiding on our Earth as well."

"I don't understand," Sam interrupted. "Why is Ra coming in person to execute...uh..." She hesitated when she saw John's sullen expression.

"Dan's...Dan's _re'klya_." John said it as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

Jack looked over to Daniel who shook his head. "I don't know what it means." Teal'c shook his head also.

"It means marked," John grated out, his hands bunching to fists on the table. "Trophies the Goa'uld like to parade around in their palaces." He swallowed, trying to calm down. "Dan was given..." He scowled, the fists growing tighter, knuckles bleached white. "Given by Hathor to Ra as a token of her esteem. She'd lost favor with him when Seth caught her building her own army. Ra put her under Jermak's supervision to make sure she didn't do that again."

"Ouch," Jack commented. He didn't appear to be sympathetic though. "So she's no longer Ra's favorite?"

Daniel fiddled with his pencil as John snorted. "Hardly. She's still queen, but word is Ra is looking and if he finds one—"

"She's out of a job," Jack quipped.

John paused, then shrugged. "Yeah...I guess you could say that. Giving Ra the one scholar who was there to break every message he passed along to his generals was like giving Ra the first prize. He eradicated all chances of us breaking down their correspondence and intercepting slaves."

"Intercepting?" Hammond spoke up.

"So far, we couldn't manage a dent in their battleships. Even if we got past the Stargate up there, we couldn't get into the royal chambers where the generals and shields were. Without the shields down, not getting the leaders, we might as well have been throwing spitballs at their defenses. So all we've been doing so far was finding where major groups of slaves were transported to, go there, free them and relocate them to several sites we found free of Goa'uld rule."

"Machello's map?" Daniel asked.

John nodded. "We got the location of the naquada dampeners to use on our Stargate, and there were locations of several spots. We've been fortunate so far. The Nox have been very kind to-what?" He stopped when he saw everyone's surprised looks. "Uh, I take it from your expressions you've encountered the Nox before, huh?"

"Short people, funny hair?" Jack quipped, hand out to indicate a height above the table level. "Yeah, nice people, too." He tapped his pen on the table. "How many have you gotten so far?"

"I don't know...I was gathering intelligence most of the time," John muttered. While walking alongside the scum of the galaxy, pretending to play the perfect overseer for the mines. "From what Dan told me, they were doing pretty good until Ra was informed of Dan's presence. He thought he had already died from the _re'klya_. Dan was hiding for all that time..." He hesitated, a flicker of grief flashing across his face before he continued. "At a friend's place. Ra found out and got him back."

_John stared at the charred remains of the metal shield used to cover the entrance to Catherine's bunker. There was nothing left._

_"Dan!" John barely heard Ferretti's whispered warning to check first if the coast was clear. He shoved the curtains aside, the crates, and gaped at the pile of bodies neatly stacked in the center of the room. The Jaffa had stormed in, killed everyone and left them there for all to see. He spun away from the morbid display. "Dan!" He pushed the bed away, the rubble of the fallen ceiling, but all he found was a shattered glass tube._

_Dan's stimulant. John fell to his knees, picking up the shards of glass._

_John stood there, his heart frozen to a shard. He was too late. They found him. _

_Dan was gone._

"Captain O'Neill?"

"I'm fine. I was thinking." John nodded curtly at the group. "Ra shows his face once in a blue moon. And with him coming to grace Earth with his presence, we have a good chance of getting him with the tablet in our hands. It's the only chance we have."

"I can't crack the codes though," Daniel said softly. "I see similarities in certain languages, but there are no patterns, no comparison I can make to even begin to start."

John ran a hand through his hair. "We get the codes, we can get inside his chambers. Ra has his battleship sealed tight. Shields, weapons, maps to where all the slaves were transported are all in his damn royal chambers. He feared assassination so he had the damn place hidden in a maze, hooked up to some energy barrier that can only be locked and unlocked with his royal insignia key and a code. That code is in the second tablet which we can't find because Machello never got a chance to tell us where he hid it." John sighed, frustrated. _Not to mention we have no key to use either._

"I think the Asgards would be our best bet then, sir," Carter spoke up, glancing over to Jack. "We can hook up the naquada reactor, download the symbols into another portable hard drive and-"

"I hope these aliens are who you say they are."

"They haven't disappointed us yet," Daniel reassured him.

"All we need to do is get there," Sam said, and everyone sobered.

"And that's the problem," John muttered.

"Well, I've got a probe set up as a fail-safe. It's programmed to go through the mirror, record two minutes of film and reverse, touch the mirror again and return. That way, we can see what's on the other side before crossing over," Carter offered.

Hammond chewed over the thought carefully. "Major, if I recall, the quantum mirror we had reset itself after it was turned off. When the other reality's Major Kawalsky and your own counterpart arrived, you needed to find their version once more."

"So I might not find the way back home?" John frowned.

Daniel shook his head. "We don't know that for sure. The rules might not even apply with the wall. We needed a dial device last time to trigger the mirror." He looked away for a moment, lost in his memories. "The first time I went through, I was fortunate enough to have brought the device with me. So the reality stayed the same so I was able to get back. Otherwise..."

Seeing Daniel's expression, Carter added hastily "Maybe the quantum wall hasn't reset itself. It is on a larger scale. Its functions may be different."

"So how do you guys know if you can get back?" John argued.

"The probe will test that for us." Carter nodded to herself. "We'll use it as the control element first. It should work."

Jack frowned. Should? Might? He didn't like the sound of those words. Too many unknown variables. He studied Daniel for a moment, mulling over what John had said before. About risk.

Folding his hands together, Jack brooded. There was a good chance the mirror, if they could figure it out, would not take them where they needed to go. They could get lost in another reality altogether. Just like Daniel had.

_Jack's gut knotted when he saw the crumpled form on the floor. He wasn't there before! Jack had checked. Countless times. How did he get here? Jack slipped an arm around the slack shoulders and steeled himself to haul him up to his feet. "Let's get him back to Earth and—"_

_"No, Jack!" Daniel exploded suddenly out of his shock like a diver emerging from the depths. Everyone started. Jack nearly lost his grip on Daniel. "There's...no t-time..." Daniel's breathing quickened. "No time...they're coming..." His eye widened with desperation, and Jack could have sworn he saw his own stunned face in the blue orb. "They're coming..."_

_Daniel's gasping grew louder, and Jack darted a concerned look over to Carter who took off without asking, yelling to the other teammates to dial up the Stargate and get the medics here. Jack could hear the whine of the Stargate, the rumble when it made the building shake and knew help would be there soon._

_"They're coming..." Daniel kept repeating it as if he was afraid he would forget. Heaving, his hand dropped from his wound and fell to the floor, bloody fingers turned up facing Jack. _

_"Who? Daniel...who?" Jack asked urgently. He could hear footsteps and whipped around. He found himself staring back at half a dozen pairs of curious eyes of the other team who was assisting them with the search. He stiffened, shifting away from prying stares. He was startled to see Teal'c suddenly standing up, interrupting him._

_"Leave," Teal'c boomed._

_Suddenly the door was cleared, and Carter's anxious face was poking back in the doorway. _

_"Sir, Kraft's here with the stretcher."_

_"Okay," Jack grunted as he hoisted Daniel up to his feet. The younger man swayed until he bumped into Jack and would have slid down to the floor again if it weren't for Teal'c's steady grip around his waist. "Let's get him home."_

_"Ja'k..." Daniel's head lifted with great effort. Jackson stared at him with such intensity, Jack's arms rippled with goosebumps. "We have to s-stop them...They're..."_

_"They're coming, I know. But first we have to get you home." Jack tried to get him to walk, but Daniel suddenly slumped forward. _

_"Home...they...you were trying to get me home..." Daniel's shoulders shook, his breathing hitched in pain. "Died...all of them...oh God...they're all dead, Ja'k...dead...to get me home...I..."_

_"Colonel O'Neill, what's the delay?" Kraft popped his head into the room, medical bag in his hands. _

_Trying to calm Daniel, Jack looked at the medic helplessly. The archeologist was shaking, trembling even as his breathing picked up, growing harsher and harsher. _

_"We have to s-stop this...Ja'k...we have to..." Daniel was babbling. He had no idea what Daniel was trying to say, but the chill down his neck told him Daniel was truly afraid._

_Jack was willing to say anything to get his friend to move, to get him help. He had Teal'c hoist him up, arm around his waist since his shoulder was too raw and sensitive to have an arm draped over it. Jack went around to the front and framed Daniel's face between both his hands to get Daniel to look directly at him. "Daniel...look at me...look at me..."_

_Pain-filled eyes lifted._

_Jack shook the head between his hands briefly, getting his friend to focus. "I promise. Whatever it is. Whoever it is, we'll stop them. I'll stop them."_

_"P-promise?" Daniel looked so haunted, so hungry for verification that Jack didn't hesitate._

_"I swear. I promise. I'll even put it on paper. Hell, I'll tattoo it on my forehead. Okay?"_

_Daniel looked at him carefully, as if searching for something in Jack's face. Then he nodded._

_And fainted right into Teal'c's arms._

"...Preprogramming the probe to return with the results."

Jack blinked, suddenly realizing Carter was finished with her discussion on the probe she and Simmons were designing solely for the mission. He studied Teal'c, who already looked very ready for the mission. Carter had an expectant look on her face, almost looking too eager for her own good to get working. And Daniel...

Now, Jack didn't know if Daniel going to another alternate reality was such a hot idea any more. He tapped his pen absently on his legal pad, studying his friend.

Darting a glance over to Jack, Daniel caught the colonel looking concerned. Daniel tried to smile, shrugging casually and saw Jack's shoulders relax, but his brow still furrowed, creasing his forehead in the usual worry lines. When he looked over to John however, the captain was still frowning.

"They don't know about us, so we have the element of surprise. And once we contact the Asgards, the rest should be easy." Daniel said out loud more for their benefit than his, studying John out the corner of his eyes. He was heartened to see Jack nodding in agreement, the forehead smoothing out once again.

"Doctor Frasier is going to keep trying those tests for Dan?" John asked. He frowned as he mentally calculated something, counting out the days since he knew was the last dose. "He's going to need some more _neuar_ soon and—"

"Excuse me...what did you say?" Daniel interrupted.

John started. "Oh, that's right..." He stared at the polished table. "When Dan first got the _re'klya_, he wasn't the way he is immediately. Actually, the way they work, they suck every functioning aspect of a victim's life, leaving an animate husk in its place" John felt ill, his throat closing up as he recalled.

"God," Daniel whispered, staring at John's bowed head. He swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth..

"Dan...We had an insider who was supplying him _neuar_...that slows down the processes of the device. So while Ra and those other snake bastards thought he was a vegetable, Dan heard every word of their plans, strategies, and mine locations. That's how he found out Ra was coming ahead of schedule."

"Maybe Doc can make a substitute for him," Jack suggested.

John lifted bone weary eyes, looking very old all of a sudden. "I hope so. He'll need something soon." He sat up straighter and leaned forward. "Your doctor will keep trying, right?"

Hammond coughed. "Of course, Captain O'Neill." It was true. He knew the doctor was determined to keep trying, but he also knew the chances of finding anything feasible were growing slimmer and slimmer with each hour. He folded his hands. "When the mission is a success, Doctor O'Neill is more than welcome to return here and—"

"I think you're mistaken in something," John cut in. "He's not going."

"Huh?" Jack blurted out.

"Dan's staying here...that is...if it's all right with everyone. The tablet hasn't been cracked, and he can keep at it here. If the Asgards help us—"

"_When_ the Asgards help you," Jack interrupted. "When."

John paused. "Right..._when_ they help us, I'll be returning to get him. It's safer that way."

"And he agreed to this?" Hammond asked in a quiet voice.

Jack darted the general a puzzled look. "It's probably better this way, sir," he mused. "He can rest here."

Hammond contemplated John for a long moment. "And Doctor O'Neill agreed to this?" he repeated.

John nodded, hoping his face appeared believable.

Sighing, Hammond sat up straighter. "Very well. SG-1, I'm giving you the green light for this. SG-3 will be joining you on this mission. Supplies, whatever you think your friends may need will be waiting downstairs in the Stargate room." He smiled sadly at John. "Anything at all, Captain O'Neill. Anything at all."

John appeared stunned. "Uh...thank you."

Surveying the team around the table, Hammond calmly closed his folder, signaling the meeting was over. "Be ready to ship off in three hours."

John sat there as the rest of the team rose, heading for the locker rooms. Staring at the empty table, it struck him he was finally going back.

Without Dan.

But first, John would have to tell his brother he wasn't going.

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"When?" Dan asked faintly as he heard John enter the room. The ailing man could hear his brother fiddling around the drawers, probably getting his stuff ready to head off. "When are we leaving?" He pushed back on his hands, starting to rise.

John looked away. "Not for another few hours."

"You think it's really going to work?"

"What? The Asgard thing?" The captain frowned. "I don't know. I mean, they sound pretty certain these alien guys will be able to help us."

"I hope so." Dan smiled briefly as he flexed his fingers.

The young man stopped wiggling his fingers as he sat up. A hand on his chest pushed him down again. "John—"

"There's still time. Get some rest, okay? You'll need your strength."

Dan snorted. "I know. I just…it feels like I'm wasting time lying around, you know?"

"You're not wasting time!" his brother snapped. When he saw Dan's fingers curled around the edge of his sleeve, his brow furrowing with concern, the captain swore under his breath. "Damn. Look, I'm sorry I—"

"Forget about it." Dan shrugged. "I guess a little nap couldn't hurt." He paused when he felt his brother move as if getting up from the bed. Then something tall and cylindrical, damp from cold condensation was pressed into his hands. "John?"

"Something to drink," the older man said gruffly. "Might as well catch a meal before we go. Might not get the chance later."

Dan sighed. "Look, I don't—"

"Please." John clasped his hands over Dan's insistently.

"Fine." The young man reluctantly accepted the cup and tilted it back, drinking the cool liquid down his throat. As usual, it tasted metallic like everything else, and he had to swallow several times before the nausea set in again.

"Apple juice," John said quietly. Dan nodded. The young man couldn't tell anyway. Dan handed the cup back, and he could feel his arm trembling. He swallowed. The cup couldn't have weighed much and here he was shaking like it weighed a ton. John took the item without a word, but Dan felt he had to say something.

"Sorry."

John set the cup down. "No problem. Don't worry about it."

Head dropping back against the pillows, Dan sighed heavily. "How do you think everyone is?"

"Probably too busy fighting to realize we're gone," John assured him. "They know I'm coming back with you. They'll hang on until then."

"The tablet...if only I knew where the second half was..." Yawning interrupted what Dan was going to say. The young man frowned, rubbing his face with a trembling hand. "...the key, John. The tablets may also tell us how to get the key. Machello did say everything we needed to get in and beat Ra were on those tablets."

"We'll beat him," the older brother murmured, sitting closer and brushing back a stray lock of hair. He squeezed Dan's thin shoulder. "We'll find that bitch and make her talk. We'll get those things out of you yet."

Dan turned his head, appearing deep in thought. "Uh huh." He rotated his head, grimacing at the stiffness of his neck. "Let's just win first, John."

"Of course," John replied, wondering why Dan didn't look so optimistic any more. _Probably tired_, he thought as he watched the young man yawn again. Dan murmured a sound of surprise and tried to sit up straighter. Dan found himself slumping, sliding down to the bed on his back further and further.

"W-wha…" Dan reached out and grabbed his brother by the sleeve again. He panicked as he felt his body growing heavier and heavier. His hands became claws as he frantically tried to sit up only to find himself sinking deeper and deeper into a mode of weightlessness. "John…"

The older man closed his eyes as he felt the fingers slip from his arm. He pulled the hand off, heard his brother whisper a protest as he went deeper into sleep. John held the thin hand for a moment, feeling it grow slack, the fingers no longer curling over his palm. The limp fingers gave him a feeling of dread, almost foreboding. Dan was only sleeping due to the sedatives he'd slipped in the juice. He was only sleeping in a far better place than where they were going. His eyes softened, glistening brightly at his brother's slumped body against the pillows.

"I'm the one who's sorry, Danny," John whispered. "You can't come with me." He drew his brother close and hugged him as tightly as he could, head buried into the hair. "I'm so sorry." His voice cracked. "I just can't let you go back there. Not back to that place. I can't. But I'll be back. I swear to God, I'll be back. Wait for me."

Prying himself away was the hardest thing he'd ever done. John was half tempted to gather his brother in his arms and take him with him as promised. He'd sworn to a little boy long ago he would never leave him alone. That he would never be alone again. But he couldn't. He simply couldn't take Dan back to the shambles of a world they called home. Not now. But later, when Ra was gone and Frasier cured him. Then he and Dan would walk together through the Stargate to begin the search for the rest of their family, wherever they were.

Shutting his eyes, John turned away from the bed and forced himself to walk towards the door, relying on memory. He didn't dare look over his shoulder. He might not be able to leave if he did.

John clutched the doorknob, fingers curling around it to make a fist. Jerking it open, he almost ran out the door but was careful to make sure it didn't slam behind him.


	15. Chapter 14

**Author's Note : **Thanks for the reviews! I'm glad you're sticking around for this story. Hang on, the boring chatty stuff is over from here on in...

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**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

Standing in the embarkation room, Jack studied the rest of his team, checking over their equipment, making a count of everybody as if he wanted to insure he got the same number when he got back. Four gold wires glinted on all their wrists. Jack rubbed the skin around his again, hoping they'd come off just as easily as they went on. He gripped the belt hanging on his hip, the clips and grenades oddly reassuring in his grasp. Studying Daniel's own belt, the sidearm in the hip holster looked woefully inadequate, and he wondered if he should tell Jackson to go back and get something bigger.

Like a bazooka.

_Now you're being ridiculous_, Jack scolded himself, the image of his friend lugging around the cumbersome weapon almost making him snicker. When he saw Daniel peering curiously at him, Jack cleared his throat and pretended to go back to checking on his stuff. Zipping up his vest and jacket, he nodded when he saw SG-3 marching in.

"Ferretti," Jack said, getting a few greetings chorused from the other man's team as he examined his rifle before slinging it behind his shoulder. He nodded towards the crates behind the major, stacked precariously on top of four rovers, each hooked to another like a pair of train cars. "That's for them?"

"Courtesy of Uncle Sam," the major quipped cheerfully, waving the joystick remotes to control them.

Teal'c arched an eyebrow at Carter. "You have a very generous uncle, Major Carter."

Sam groaned. "Did you teach him to say that, sir?"

"Who me?" Jack asked in an innocent voice. He grinned wickedly. "Would I do a thing like that?"

"Five dollars says yes," Daniel muttered to Carter as he patted himself down to make sure he had everything in his pockets. He flinched as he received a playful swipe at his hat, tilting it over his eyes, obscuring his vision.

"Ye of little faith," Jack said in a mock hurt tone. The colonel pretended not to see Daniel glaring at him while readjusting his boonie.

"Carrying the whole lab in there, Major Carter?" Ferretti called out from his spot by his own team. "Richards, you didn't need to bring your stuff at all. She's got it all," he quipped as his men chuckled. Ferretti checked his watch, inspecting the embarkation room. "Where the hell is your twin, Colonel?"

"He's coming," Jack said. He gave Daniel a look, chewing his lower lip thoughtfully. The archeologist blinked back at him.

"What?" Daniel asked, puzzled.

Shrugging, Jack waved towards the observation window where Hammond was standing behind the consoles. "Nothing...thought the guy would be back there again to see us...him off."

"Maybe he wanted to get back to work," Daniel suggested just as John walked through the heavy concrete doorway. The captain catching the last bit, made no comment. He stood behind Daniel, quietly zipping up his vest.

Jack studied his counterpart. "So he's really staying behind?"

John knew immediately who he was referring to. "He's not coming with us." The captain glanced over his shoulder with a strange look of regret before he took a deep breath. "It's better this way."

Making no comment, Jack readjusted the strap of his rifle. "Ready?" Jack asked.

Silently, John nodded, eyes widening slightly when he saw Ferretti.

"Captain O'Neill," Ferretti greeted, extending a hand. "Name's—"

"I know," John smiled briefly before reaching out his. "I know. It's good to see a familiar face." He gave the other soldier's hand a hearty shake before releasing.

"Hey," Jack complained, wheedling. "Isn't my face familiar enough? Hell, we both share it!"

John frowned, but Daniel thought he saw a glint in his eyes. "A little, Colonel. Although I don't have that many gray hairs."

Jack spun to Ferretti when he thought he heard a snicker, then to Teal'c when he heard something from his direction. The Jaffa gave him an emotionless expression, but Jack could have sworn he saw an eyebrow twitch. The colonel grumbled, putting on his cap, ruefully touching a few short gray spikes before grumbling good-naturedly, "And whose fault is that?" He gave Daniel another light swat to the head.

"Hey," Daniel complained as the brim of his hat went over his eyes again, knocking his glasses off crookedly.

"Cut it out," John said sharply. "You're going to break his glasses."

Carter walked up casually to her CO, unable to stop herself from whispering to him. She smirked. "Watch it, sir. You could be your own worst enemy."

Glowering at the major, Jack said nothing.

Sam hid her smile as she tugged at one canvas covered corner, she peeled back the material, revealing an odd squarish device about a foot tall.

"Savior of the world in easy to carry size, huh?" John murmured, eyes on the covered lump on the rover. "I really hope they work."

"They will," Jack said, having heard the conversation. Jack waved towards Hammond, indicating he was ready.

Hammond motioned to the technician sitting by the computer, and quickly, the chevrons lit up one by one. "SG-1, SG-3...you have a go. We'll be waiting."

"Here we go again," Jack muttered as he stepped in line with Daniel. The archeologist numbly nodded, eyes on the Stargate as it burst into a pool of light. "Okay, kids. Let's go. Ferretti, let the supplies go first. Carter, then that special probe you and Simmons were making like Doctor Frankenstein."

"Yes, sir," Carter murmured as she wheeled a small, round probe that went up to her knee. Giving it a little pat, she fiddled with the controls, the probe chirping in response. She waited as the rovers rumbled up the ramps, the crates on top barely jiggling and went through the event horizon without a sound. Pausing at the sparkling surface only briefly, she took a deep breath and stepped through, the probe quickly following.

"All set?" Jack asked. Daniel looked up, surprised when he realized Jack was asking him, rather than John.

"All set," Daniel said, heartened to hear his voice was steady. He tilted his head towards John. "Captain O'Neill?"

"Coming," John said, tearing his eyes away from the observation window and looking down at himself, brushing invisible dirt off his webbed vest. He finally nodded towards the colonel.

Daniel wondered briefly what John found so fascinating back there and why Dan wasn't there to see them off.

_I guess he was upset he couldn't come along_. Shaking his head, thinking Dan O'Neill was perhaps lucky he didn't have to go back yet, Daniel took a step up the ramp. He stared at the Stargate and wondered if Jack had played around with the same idea himself, leaving him behind. Daniel stopped, staring at the Stargate with a mild frown. He had to make sure that what happened in the other universe didn't happen to theirs.

"Let's go," John said.

When Daniel nodded and followed after John, Jack felt an odd, constricting feeling in his chest as he watched his friend go up the ramp, passing him to reach the Stargate. As they started stepping through, Jack gave a wave to Hammond and hurried after them, not wanting to lose sight of his teammate.

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_"Come on...let's go!" Jack barked to Carter and Daniel, not wanting to hear another protest. The Goa'uld warning they'd found in the main that Teal'c told him about didn't sound good. His gut instinct was practically screaming "Warning! Warning!" to him right now. He banged on the wall as he darted out the door, hearing footsteps hurrying after him._

_Teal'c was now standing by the DHD, waiting for the rest of his comrades to join him. Jack twisted around and to his dismay, found only Carter huffing and puffing behind him. "Where's Daniel?"_

_Blinking in surprise, Carter turned around. Her mouth dropped open. "He...he was right behind me...I think..." Guiltily, she lowered her eyes. Then she straightened. "I'll go get him, sir."_

_"No, no," Jack grated out. "I'll get him." He tossed his GDO to Carter and jogged back to the room he'd left Daniel in. "Daniel!" he shouted, telling Daniel enough was enough and to get his butt over here front and center._

_No answer._

_"Daniel, damn it, we haven't got all day!" Jack stomped noisily over to the room. "Daniel! I swear if you think—" He stuck his head in the room to find—_

_Nothing._

_The room was empty except for a shiny slab of black stone standing in the back. _

_Daniel was gone._

"Anderson, you and Richards do patrol. Make sure we don't have any more nasties running around. There are too many rooms here for my comfort. Just because we checked them before doesn't make me feel secure."

"Colonel, I need to make one minor adjustment to its casing to guard against possible radiation disruption."

"Major Ferretti, what about—"

"Daniel, can you set up the camera over there so we can record everything we do?"

"Does anyone have the tripod for the camera? I need to set the camera up—"

The flurry of noise and activity drew Jack out of his thoughts, and he rubbed one eye, wishing it wasn't so dark in here. Even the electric lanterns they set up weren't enough to brighten the room. He scoped the area, noting the bodies of Ra's Jaffa had already been moved by a previous team, but the place was still cluttered with too many things, too many places for the enemy to hide.

Staring at the reflective wall, Jack resisted the urge to tell Daniel to stay back. He didn't need to anyway. Every single time Daniel leaned to the side to get a better glimpse of the wall, John casually took another step to block him, he wasn't even aware of doing it himself.

Daniel shot Jack a silent plea as the scientist sighed audibly. John chose to ignore him, crossing his arms as he stared down at the somewhat nondescript probe.

Scanning it up and down as the metal mound shaped probe chirped and beeped, John considered it. It looked like a giant aluminum gumdrop with wide tracks like a tanker. He winced inwardly at the comparison and resisted the temptation of giving it a kick just to see if it worked. "What does this thing do exactly?" John asked warily.

"Oh no," Jack muttered as he cringed.

Carter didn't even look up as she hunched over her machine with a screwdriver. "Simmons and I reprogrammed an environmental probe to do a search and retrieval scenario. Rather than the usual collection of data on atmospheric measures, temperature ranges and seismic activity, it's going to activate the quantum surface to leap to the other reality. Then, it'll gather visual data for us for a short interval before reversing its motions to reconnect with the wall, thus returning to our point of reality."

"Captain O'Neill, are you okay?" Ferretti drawled when he saw the pained expression on John's face.

"That was very...fascinating, Major Carter," John mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "But..." he trailed off, turning left and right, silently seeking out assistance from anyone.

"Fido is going to play tour guide," Jack spoke, shaking his head at Carter. It's going to look around, take a few pictures and come back to tell us if the trip was fun or not."

"Something like that," Carter muttered as she made one last adjustment.

"Do you always talk this way?" John asked in a wry voice.

Jack answered before she could. "Be glad you didn't ask her about how the wormhole works. When she starts going about fruit and worms, watch out!"

"Don't ask," Daniel whispered to John, leaning sideways towards him when the captain scratched his head.

"I won't," John dryly answered.

Carter got up, wiping her hands on her pants. "We're all set, sir."

"Oh joy." Jack waved towards the wall. "Be our guest." He took a step back, gesturing to everyone to do the same, and caught his twin literally grabbing Daniel by the elbow to drag him back. God knew he'd been tempted to do the very same many times before. It was strangely satisfying to see Daniel attached to a human leash.

Carter absently patted her probe, fiddled with the buttons on her remote. Instantly, the machine hummed as motors started, a tiny antenna with a red light bulb on its tip extending out. Jerking forward then grinding to a stop, the probe haltingly traveled away from the SG members, weaving around legs, hopping occasionally when it rolled across pebbles and cracks. It tittered when lightning shook the structure, rolling unsteadily to the wall.

"Daniel," Jack called out.

Jackson promptly went over to the DHD. Pausing, he waited until the probe got close enough before he stepped on the platform.

The wall flickered once, then wavered before the surface altered. Their mirror image gone, the chamber changed to an empty one, revealing another version of the very room they were standing in.

"Mirror's activated," Daniel said needlessly.

"Whoa," Ferretti muttered, tipping his helmet up as he grunted, impressed. "Never got to see it in person. Nice." The rest of his team murmured the same.

"You've seen one quantum mirror, you've seen them all," Jack muttered, scowling. Daniel's eyes were fixed on the probe as it got closer and closer to the wall, the smooth casing about to touch the mirror when...

The wall completely vanished.

"Shit!" Jack exploded as everyone took a step back in unison, rifle points swinging up out of reflex. The probe was still going, unaware of any obstacles that should have been there, heading towards the other Stargate sitting opposite theirs.

Sam's mouth dropped open, and she approached the vacant spot of air. She raised her hand as if to wave it through and see if the wall was truly gone but decided against it and dropped her hand in a hurry.

Jack's mouth snapped shut after he recalled leaving it wide open. "That didn't happen with our mirror!" He jerked his head up and down, trying to find any remnants of the wall previously blocking their pathway to the other reality. All he found were stone borders forming an empty archway like a frame without its glass.

As the probe reached halfway towards the DHD on the other side, the air where the wall used to be grew smoky and solidified into a dark swirling mass of black mist and then became a wall again but still showed the probe proceeding to the other DHD platform.

"Great," John muttered, scowling at the wall which was obscuring the reflection with a greenish tinge like polished metal once more. "Now what happened?"

"Maybe it needs contact to activate," Daniel mused, distracted as his gaze stayed glued on the probe's progress. "Like an elevator door or sliding door. It'll stay open only if there's something blocking the portal itself and close when nothing else is coming through."

Carter kept her eyes on the probe. "Right. Like sticking your foot in front of the elevator door, the doors will stay open so long as your foot stays there."

"Or like holding the subway doors until you let go of them or stop blocking the way," Daniel agreed.

"I just can't figure out if it resets or not like our quantum mirror," Sam grumbled as her eyes tracked the probe. She turned around to Daniel at the DHD platform.

"We could try going through, then back," Daniel suggested.

Jack glared at him. "Now wait just a—"

"I don't think it would be a good idea, Daniel," Sam cut in hastily. "We have no idea how the realities come up or if this is just a straight portal between two realities only."

Jack looked towards the ceiling exasperated when he found he couldn't interrupt them at all. Teal'c watched Carter and Jackson go back and forth with their theories with interest, eyes darting left and right as each one added something new to the discussion.

Nodding, Carter stared at the wall, amazed. Sam added, "Keep holding them, and they'll stay open for a while. But let them go and the door will slide shut." Gesturing at the wall, Sam marveled at how the image shimmered like water cascading over a picture. "Or like those automatic door sensors. They'll open if someone's there."

Jack made a face. "What's with all the analogies?" He only received a shrug from Daniel in response. Needing something to do besides playing spectator, Jack folded his cap, tucking it inside his jacket, rocking on his heels impatiently.

"I can still see the probe, Colonel," Sam called as she fished out a small portable television set. She grumbled under her breath as she tried adjusting the knobs, then pointing it towards the wall, getting no result. "Not getting a signal though, sir. The wall must buffer out the video feed. It's on automatic now. We'll have to wait and see what it records in its camera instead." The probe lumbered over to the coverstone the other DHD was on, stopped, spun its body around scanning the area, then rolled up the step haltingly.

"Looks like it's activating the wall again." Daniel stared wide-eyed, open mouthed as the probe hopped down the platform in reverse, heading back towards them with rapid speed. John kept his eyes on Jackson as he watched Carter's probe obediently scooted back

The wall disappeared again.

"I wish it would stop doing that!" Ferretti complained, a few of his men grumbling behind him. He took off his cap and threw it down on the ground.

The probe zipped by like a scared cat, chirping as it went, the top of the antenna blinking wildly as if excited, between Daniel on the coverstone and Teal'c, before finally stopping at Carter's feet.

And the wall was back once more.

"Now I know why I never saw any wall," John said, measuring it up and down. "Thing must have blinked out when we got near. Damn place was so dark, I couldn't see more than two feet in front of me."

Daniel stepped off the platform, and the wall shimmered. The other Stargate disappeared, and their amazed expressions were reflecting back on the mirrored surface.

"Did it record anything?" Daniel asked anxiously, bending over the probe. Carter flipped out a panel. "Well?" Daniel asked again as she turned on her screen, muttering to herself as the images came on. "Well?"

"Daniel," Jack tugged at his elbow. "Would you wait until she gets the damn thing turned on?" He peered over Carter's shoulder himself. "Anything yet, Major?"

"Is it okay to go through?" John asked, pressing closer.

Ferretti managed to slip his head within the crowd. "Is that thing working?"

Daniel craned his neck to see as he suddenly found a mob around Sam. "Is it their reality?"

Carter sighed, shooting an annoyed glare at anyone near her vicinity. Shaking her head, she played around with the controls, murmuring an "Ah ha" when a picture popped up. The chamber appeared in hues of black and gray in the black and white video. She showed the screen to John. "Anything look familiar to you?"

Scanning the screen, John shook his head. "No, it looks like this place. Exactly the same." He banged a fist against his thigh. "Damn. How are we supposed to know which...wait a minute." John went closer, inches away from the tiny screen. "What's that?"

"What?" Jack asked, frustrated when he didn't get a prompt answer. He had half a mind to shove everyone away from the screen so he could see for himself.

"I remember taking something off when I first arrived," John said, eyes glued to the viewer. "Major, can you rewind the tape...or maybe pause it over there?" He pointed to the screen to a small gray object peeking out from behind some rubble.

"I can do better than that," Carter replied as she unzipped her backpack. Pulling out a laptop, she sat crossed legged on the floor, making cable connections to the laptop, the probe and the portable television. "If I triangulate the image from this axis, enhance the pixel, maybe the resolution, shift the feed over to the computer..." She trailed off, focused on her task.

Ferretti grinned crookedly, leaning closer to Daniel and whispering, "She's worse than you, Doctor Jackson."

Jack grumbled in agreement. He could feel everyone crowding around him as he hovered over Carter. "Anything yet?"

"Almost got it. I...there!" Triumphantly, she rotated the laptop on her legs, angling it for everyone to see.

With the exception of Teal'c, who arched an eyebrow at the sight of everyone else surging forward, they were practically threatening to tackle Carter in their eagerness had she not waved them off with an irritated scowl. She raised the laptop higher from her position on the ground, showing them a scene from the Stargate, an odd spot of light color tucked behind the steps, barely visibly despite the digital enlargement.

"That looks like..." Daniel scratched his chin, squinting as he stooped closer to the laptop, trying to place the image with a name. "Looks like some sort of metal."

"Looks like a sheet of something," Ferretti called out from the back of the crowd.

Jack scrunched up his face as he tried to get a better glimpse. "Do you know what it looks like to me?" He tilted his head back. "It almost looks like a...a..."

"A piece of Jaffa armor," Teal'c stated in a flat voice. "It would appear to be part of the chest plate."

"From one of them flunkies you guys found before maybe?" Ferretti questioned as everyone backed away. John stayed where he was, in front of the portable computer, staring at the enlarged picture.

"No..." John said out of the blue. "It's mine."

Everyone looked at each other nervously.

Daniel spoke up first. "Uh...did you borrow it to..."

"No, like I said...it was mine." John pinned his gaze on Daniel. "Like I said before...not everyone can be heroes." He stalked off to contemplate the wall, his back stiff.

"That's my world back there," John said softly. "My reality. Just on the other side. When we escaped, I threw down my armor." He pointed to the corner of the other room, behind the mirror. "It's really my world." He was unreadable as he stared at the other Stargate on the wall.

Jack stepped forward. No one else dared. The ramrod straight back John turned towards them screamed of being unapproachable. But Jack did, stepping in until he was right next to John.

Peering at him out of the corner of his eye, Jack asked his twin quietly, "Ready to go back?"

"No." John said it too low for anyone else but Jack to hear. "Rock and a hard place, Colonel." He stuck his hands in his pockets, striking Jack as very Daniel-like, shoulders hunched forward like a great weight was set upon him. "Do or die."

"I'll go for the first part," Jack quipped, resting his hands on top of his hanging rifle. "Can we skip the last part?"

Tilting his head back to gaze at the entire length of the wall, Jack nodded towards the wall, too wary of touching it yet. "Carter, how safe is it for us to go through this thing?"

"I can't tell, sir. There was no signal returning to us when the probe went through, but it could be it's not equipped to handle inter-dimensional travel." Sam rummaged around her bag once more and pulled out a Geiger counter. Walking over, she waved it towards the wall. Jack could hear the device whining from where he stood and frowned. "Readings are high again, but not too high. We can chance walking through. I just don't know how something of this magnitude can be contained safely within the structure's walls without—"

"Is it safe or not?" Jack grated out.

Sam considered the wall before nodding her head. "I think so."

"Think so?" Ferretti echoed, exchanging a concerned look with his men.

"Well, I went through okay and got all my arms and legs. No glowing parts or anything." John gestured towards himself.

"Perhaps I should try," Teal'c spoke up. "My symbiote may protect me from any ill effects."

"Sir?" Carter turned to Jack.

Chewing thoughtfully, Jack nodded. "Alright, Teal'c. Just in and out. Same thing as the probe did. Is that understood?"

"Understood."

"Wait," Carter called out. She dropped the reader in Teal'c's hand. "Just leave it on as you walk through and back. Let me know what it says."

Ferretti hop on the coverstone, the wall reacting as it did before and showing the other Stargate once he stepped on it.

Nodding, Teal'c strode forward to the wall.

"Be care—" Jack started to say when Teal'c went right at the wall without any hesitation. He jumped, glaring at the Jaffa's back as the wall flashed, disappeared around the alien as he calmly went through without a pause.

Teal'c walked down to the DHD and sure enough, the wall snapped back up again. Stepping up on the platform, the wall wavering in reaction, he waited a few minutes before heading back towards the newly activated wall again without any hesitation or trepidation.

Abruptly, he stopped.

"What is it?" Jack demanded when the Jaffa eyed the wall on the other side with an arched eyebrow.

"I don't think he can return," Sam swore, glancing down to her probe. "Our device did, though."

"Maybe because it was going fast enough. The portal could be on a timer." Daniel murmured, shifting from foot to foot nervously as he realized Teal'c could be trapped on the other side.

The Jaffa could be seen touching the wall without any result, and his eyebrow went higher. As the others watched, he was walking back towards the DHD platform.

John watched apprehensively, hands on his rifle. "What is he doing?" he muttered.

Sam looked on for a second and saw Teal'c pulling out rope from his backpack. She grinned. "He's figured it out." She snapped her fingers, pointing at the platform. "We need to keep something on top of it to give us enough time to cross back."

Scowling at the major, then at Teal'c who was tying one of the pieces of discarded armor to the rope, then dropping it on the platform, Jack grumbled. "Would have been nice if someone figured that out before, Carter."

Stepping through towards the wall, it vanished as predicted on contact.

"It would seem one must hurry in order to cross this device, Major Carter," Teal'c intoned, not at all looking upset about the unexpected problem he was caught in before. He pulled the rope, the knot loosening as it dragged the item off the platform. But with him standing there in the middle, the portal stayed open. "I was quite fortunate this method was successful," he noted, glancing up at the empty space where the wall usually stood as he gathered up the rope he'd used.

Jack rolled his eyes, running a hand through his hair. He darted a glance over to Daniel who was breathing a sigh of relief.

"We'll make a scientist out of you yet, big guy!" Ferretti called out from the back with a huge grin.

Teal'c only responded with a wry "Indeed". He remained in the middle, at the border, sending the counter screaming with squawks and whistles.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jack called out, one finger in his ear as the counter kept wailing and wailing. Daniel flinched at the high piercing noise. Ferretti ground his teeth, clamping his ears with his hands, the sound reaching him even down by the DHD.

"I felt no ill effects from traveling from our reality to Captain O'Neill's," Teal'c calmly turned his head and studied the other reality. He didn't appear to be bothered by the growing pitch of the counter.

"Then what the hell are you doing standing over there for?" Jack demanded. He waved furiously at the Jaffa. "Get back over here!"

"This information may be of use to us, O'Neill." Teal'c said.

"All it's creating is a whole lot of noise!" John bellowed. "Now get back over here before I need a hearing aid!"

"As you wish." Teal'c took a step forward to their reality, and the noise stopped. The wall came up a few seconds later.

Everyone breathed in relief, Ferretti stepping off the platform, hand pounding one side of his head, grumbling about ringing. As soon as he stepped off, their own images reappeared on the wall.

"Thanks," Jack threw at John, who only grunted.

"Ah!" Teal'c arched an eyebrow.

Daniel was puzzled to see Teal'c looking at Jack and John with surprise. He wiggled a finger in his left ear, wishing the ringing would go away. "What?"

"I had mistaken the last voice as Colonel O'Neill's," Teal'c explained. Jack sputtered. "My apologies."

Ferretti coughed, hiding a grin as he abruptly turned to his men. He waved his hands, shooing his team away from the DHD platform. "Okay, nothing to see here. Let's get the rovers ready." He stole a glance over to Jack, saw the colonel scowling, and his mouth cracked into a wider grin.

"Watch it, Major. I still remember the fifty bucks you owe me from poker," Jack muttered out loud.

Ferretti blanched and in a louder voice, called out to his men. "Come on, let's go. Richards, get on that DHD thing, and stay there. Excuse us, ladies." He hurried to the rovers himself, speaking loudly to a few of the soldiers.

"He owed me two hundred," John said in a low voice to Jack. "In my reality, before the invasion, that is."

Jack tipped his hat forward and hoped his smirk wasn't too obvious. "We're both good in poker and bluffing; that's nice to know."

Sam studied the wall as it disappeared once more as the first rover rumbled by. Glancing at Daniel standing next to her, she came closer and whispered, "What do you think?"

Baffled, Jackson swiveled around. "Huh?"

"What the world is like over there," Carter said, missing Daniel's eyes clouding over. "I haven't been to another reality yet. The last time I couldn't go because my own doppelganger would have created the same cascade effect on me if I stayed too long. But now," she lifted her wrists, showing the wire bracelet they were all wearing, "I have to admit I'm a little curious to see what it's like over there." She stared at the rover inching its way through the space where the wall was, Jack's and John's voices shouting out distances as Ferretti maneuvered the carriers with his controls from a distance.

"I'm not," Daniel stated flatly.

Sam stilled, berating herself as she realized how it sounded. "Daniel, I didn't mean it to—"

"Hey! What gives?" Anderson from SG-3 called out. "They've stopped!"

Both Daniel and Sam looked up. Indeed, the first rover stopped midway, refusing to proceed further.

"Carter?" Jack pointed to the stopped carrier. "Any ideas?"

Sam groaned. "Probably the same reason why I couldn't get any video feedback before. Interference."

"But there's no wall," John interjected.

"When Teal'c was standing in the middle, he noted a bit of disturbance," Daniel mulled over. "Even if the wall's not there, the interference may still exist as some form of energy."

"I did feel uneasy standing in the center but not so when I departed from the spot," Teal'c agreed.

"So someone's going to have to work the controls on the other side to get it through and complete the trip," Jack muttered, brow furrowing. He shrugged. They were planning to cross over anyway. He whistled to Ferretti, catching the controls neatly in his hands when the major tossed it across. "Carter, use your control on your side, and I'll take over when they stop. Teal'c, you stand point. Make sure we don't have any of Ra's...friends running about to give us a surprise visit."

"Anderson, you and Booker help Teal'c out. Booker, take the left flank, Anderson the right," Ferretti jumped in with his own orders. He eyed his science officer standing in the back with Carter. "Richards, think you can stand here and look pretty by the DHD?"

"I think so," Richards called out. The stout soldier leaned against the DHD platform and slung his rifle over his shoulder, looking casual.

Jack examined the controls in his hands and grunted. "Okay, I'll just scoot over to help out and...Where do you think you're going?" he asked archly as he spied Daniel standing by him with a ready expression.

"Uh...with you," Daniel said, wondering why Captain O'Neill looked so apprehensive.

"I think I can work these controls, Daniel. Thank you," Jack said in a dry voice. He wiggled the device in his hands.

"You couldn't even play solitaire on the computer before it blew up and took half your office with it," Daniel pointed out, acting as if he didn't see Jack scowling at him.

John gawked at his double. "What?"

Growling, Jack didn't look happy at the mention. "Carter had my computer hooked up with some doohickey—"

"Ionic pressure gauge meter, sir," Carter corrected him. She shut up when Jack growled louder.

"Damn thing blew out my lights and everything when I turned on my computer." Jack placed his hands on his hips. "Half the forms I finished doing were ruined when the back of the damn thing burst into flames."

"Major Carter left you a note posted on your machine warning against using it, O'Neill," Teal'c mildly reminded him.

"As if I ever read those things," groused Jack as he yanked out his cap and practically slammed it down over his head. He glared at Daniel, who was gingerly trying to come closer to the rover, ready to step through.

"I need to see if the walls in the inner room are the same or if they say something different that may shed light on where the creators of this wall might have gone," Daniel protested. "And we're going through anyway."

"Did I say you couldn't go?" Jack asked, hiding a smile at Daniel's surprised expression. It faded when his gaze drifted over to John who was frowning. "Do you have a problem, Captain?" Jack asked tightly.

"None." John positioned himself beside them. "So are we going or not?"

Daniel blinked in surprise. "Oh..." He shrugged. "I guess so." He turned, about to cross the boundary.

"Ah, ah, ah!" Jack scowled at his friend.

Jackson threw up his hands, then waved one towards the other end of the room. "After you?"

Throwing his shoulders back, Jack tipped his cap towards the archeologist before stepping up to the space where the wall used to be.

"What was that all about?" John muttered.

Daniel shrugged. "He's like that. Don't worry. First to go in to make sure we all come back." He sighed. "I'm used to it. I never get to go first."

John studied Jack's back before whispering "That's how it should be." Then the captain hopped over the invisible border to the other side.

Daniel wiggled his fingers at Sam before doing the same. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and stepped into the next room.

Peering down at his own body, Daniel blinked. He felt nothing. Not even when he walked through where the wall used to be. There wasn't even a jolt like when he touched the mirror the first time. He fingered the wire bracelet on his other wrist. There was no reaction. Nothing.

"Wow!" Daniel blurted out, unable to stop himself, his apprehension disappearing like smoke with this revelation. "That...that...was amazing! I...I felt nothing!" He spun around and looked across to Sam with a silly grin. The major perked up.

Daniel was stunned a second time. "You can hear me?" he stammered.

The major looked just as surprised. "Yeah! I can!"

"H-how is that possible? When we went through the other mirror last time—"

"I know. I know. I couldn't hear a word you were saying, Daniel."

"Me neither! Maybe because there is no wall...to block sound—"

Sam nodded excitedly. "But then why can't video feed come through anyway?"

"Different wavelengths or maybe—"

"You could be right! The fact that sound can travel between different dimensions means I could alter our sensors to read those frequencies and—"

"There don't seem to be any side effects either. So Teal'c isn't the only one immune. There's no jolt, nothing!"

"Really?" she asked eagerly, coming closer to the space.

Daniel nodded vehemently, forgetting for one moment the enemy who was also on the other side. "Nothing! Like a walk across the room!" He swung his arms wide open, nearly whacking his hand on a statue that stood inches away from him.

"You know what this means?" Carter said excitedly, leaning so close to the boundary she would have fallen on her face had she gone further.

Jack winced as the chatter grew to a point where he couldn't get a word in edgewise even if he were to try. He glanced over to John, who was watched mesmerized. Jack grimaced as both began to wave their arms wildly as they hashed out the possibilities.

"I'm just glad it worked," Jack muttered as he flicked on the headlights on the rover and tossed a few lit flares out both left and right of him, dispelling some of the murky surroundings. Light flooded his side of the chamber. He noted with vague interest, the lights on their side of the reality didn't reach the other side where Carter was. Strong lights as they were, they cut off with a neat slice the moment their shine touched upon the wall as if they'd never existed in the other reality. He regarded the empty space where the wall was with a bit of amazement.

Okay, now he was impressed.

"It's like listening to geek radio in stereo," John said in an awed voice as the two still rambled on, hands waving wildly to punctuate their words. "Are they always like this?"

"Nope," Jack quipped as he positioned himself in front of the stalled rover. "You got them on a slow day." Testing the controls, he nodded in satisfaction when he saw the carrier move. "Daniel! Get over here! I'd rather have both turned on. Carter! I got a signal. Let me get this one out of the way, and we'll get the other one moving!"

Daniel did so reluctantly as Carter concentrated on the task at hand, calling out numbers to let them know how much more of the rover was left to cross over. Nothing remained to do but to watch so he went over to the DHD platform and promptly stepped up on it. He turned towards the Stargate, an exact duplicate to the one they'd come through on their side of the mirror.

"Okay?" John asked, coming up to Daniel, a metal plate gripped in his hand.

Daniel shrugged, not really in the mood to talk. He tore his eyes away from the Stargate, vaguely hearing Sam still calling out numbers as the second half of the stuck rover finally went through.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Daniel frowned as he looked down at his feet. "Although, if someone has to step on the platform, that person can't cross without stepping off, but that would cause the wall to deactivate." Daniel chewed his lower lip, crossing his arms as he mulled the problem over.

"Maybe that's what those statues are for." John pointed to the clutter of statues propped up all over the massive room. "They're life size; they could be used to stand on the platform. They're heavy enough."

Daniel brightened. "That could be it."

The captain shrugged, acting it was no big deal. "I went on a lot of those excursions with my brother, Doctor Jackson. There was a year after Iraq when I retired. Did a couple of trips with him to keep me from going stir crazy at home." John pretended not to notice Daniel's understanding expression. "I picked up a few things digging in the dirt with him."

"Oh." Something caught his attention, and Daniel focused on what was in John's hand. A chill went down his spine as he recognized the front section of Jaffa armor.

"Yours?" Daniel asked softly, remembering what John had said.

"I thought I didn't have any choice back then," John whispered hoarsely. "I really thought selling my soul to the devil himself would spare my family."

"Your brother's alive," Daniel reassured him. "And your family must still be out there. Beat Ra, and you can go find them."

John laughed bitterly. "Sure. Not very reassuring, Doctor Jackson. Seeing as how you found your wife and she's gone anyway."

The grief which flashed on Daniel's face was so acute it even caught Jack's attention from afar.

"You guys okay back there?" Jack called out, eyes drifting back to the remote. His tone, however, was thin with concern.

"Fine," Daniel whispered, face white.

John swore under his breath. "Christ...I am so sorry...I...sometimes I don't know when to pull the foot out of my mouth."

Staring at his boots, Daniel shrugged, his expression emotionless. John opened his mouth to apologize again, but he caught the tight, pained look on Daniel's face, and he dropped the idea. He turned away from the young man who was failing to hide his stricken face completely as he pretended interest in the rover traveling towards the Stargate.

"Okay, Carter!" Jack said a bit too loudly. "It's through. Send the other one in!"

Daniel watched with dull eyes as the next vehicle started up, the rover sputtering as it drew within a few feet of the center, the pile of crates trembling every so often. The other rover, already on their side of the room, continued on until it slowed down in front of the Stargate, crookedly blocking the view of the other rooms lurking in the shadows.

"It won't move!" Carter suddenly shouted.

Lifting his head, Daniel saw Carter ducking down, sticking her head under the belly of the set of rovers. She peeked underneath, withdrew and shouted back. "Wheels aren't turning, sir! I see one of the lines is broken. Maybe the axle. It might have exceeded its weight limit and something cracked."

"Cheap, freaking..." Jack's grumbling dropped to a heated whisper as he glared at the rebellious vehicle. "We're going to have to push them here." He cast a pointed look over to the pair behind him on the platform. "Any volunteers?"

John looked at Daniel's grim face, and his throat knotted at the sight of the grief he knew he'd placed there. John straightened and got off the platform, leaving Daniel alone. "I'll do it," John suggested, almost too quickly as he hurried towards Sam.

Jack waited as Teal'c and the others scooted around to the back of the stuck rover to assist John. He tapped his foot, darting a look over to Daniel. Casually, he walked back towards the coverstone and the DHD but did not step on it. "What just happened?" he asked casually as Daniel remained where he was.

"Nothing." Hands in his pockets, Daniel stood there, lips thinned to a white line. "We were talking..."

"About?" Jack didn't like the pale, ashen look of shock on his friend.

"About losing something," Daniel would only say.

The wall suddenly appeared in a swirl of smoke, surprising everyone. Jack found himself staring at his own reflection instead.

Jack shook his head, grinding his teeth. "I hate it when it does that!" He sighed, nodding towards the platform. "Get back on it, Daniel."

Almost immediately, Daniel got on the DHD platform, and the wall wavered. The image changed, their reflections gone, returning to the view of the others who had come around the stuck rover, alarmed.

"It must have rematerialized itself back on when there was nothing crossing its portal." Daniel explained as Jack approached the mirrored surface and saw Sam gawking at it. For a moment, Daniel was nervous, wondering if it had reset, the shimmering occasionally warping their features proving disquieting. But Carter waved, pointed to John, then to her probe idly standing by the DHD platform, and Daniel relaxed. It was still their reality on the other side.

_Thank God_, he thought. "I'd better just stand by the platform here to activate it again so it won't turn off."

"Fine." Staring at the wall, perturbed, Jack stood there in front of the quantum mirror with his arms crossed. His skin tingled as he realized they were cut off from their own reality even though a mere touch would send them back.

Sam waved to Jack from her side, mouth moving as she spoke, probably forgetting he couldn't hear with the wall up now. He caught a few words though, like "cross" and "turn on" and guessed she was telling him the same thing as Daniel did. He sighed, pointed to his ears and shrugged.

Getting the message, Sam grinned sheepishly, mouthed "Sorry" and went back to pushing the rover closer to the wall. At least once the rover touched the wall, they'd be able to hear and communicate with each other.

Sighing, Jack headed back towards the DHD platform, joining Daniel on top of the coverstone, keeping the mirror active on their end, controls ready for when the next rover appeared.

Thunder rumbled above.

Jack jumped. Glancing up, squinting in the uneven lighting provided by the few flashlights and flares on his side, he saw the same ceiling, cracked in some parts, revealing a dusty pink sky. He wanted to ask Daniel about that but found the archeologist doing the same—staring at the ceiling with his brow furrowed.

"That's odd," Daniel murmured.

"What is?"

"I didn't see any lightning."

Jack took another look at the ceiling. Sure enough, there were no flashes in the sky. "Maybe it's too far away."

"Maybe." Daniel mulled it over before turning towards the Stargate. "The Asgards will help them, right Jack?"

Jack was astounded to hear the doubt in Daniel's voice. "Of course. Why? You're thinking they won't?"

"So many different variables," the archeologist murmured.

"But they'll all end up the same," Jack said, confident. "They'll beat the Goa'uld."

"How about Ra?"

Jack frowned, giving a cursory glance at the mirror, the rover barely budging a few more inches despite everyone chipping in. "Ra's the same thing, Daniel."

"No, he isn't." Running his hands up and down his arms, Daniel stared at the DHD next to him. "He's not very nice," he mumbled, touching one of the metal panels of chevrons with his fingers and shivered.

"Most Goa'ulds aren't," Jack drawled. He frowned as he saw his teammates on the other side still struggling to move the cumbersome rover, Ferretti resorting to sliding on its underbelly to try and fix the thing. He smirked at the comical sight of the major's legs kicking in the air as the others didn't realize he was under there and kept trying to push anyway. Ferretti stuck his head back out, face red from hollering and although he couldn't hear the words, Jack pretty much guessed the text of his conversation. "I haven't seen a polite Go'uald yet. If I did, we'd call them Tok'ra, and even then, it would be a stretch."

"No, he's really, _really_ not nice, Jack."

Pausing, Jack turned and studied his friend. "What are you trying to say?"

"I met him before, Jack."

"Well...so did I," the colonel pointed out.

"But I..._met._..him," Daniel shuddered.

"You're going to be okay with all this?" Jack asked seriously.

Daniel gave him a look, pursing his lips, before turning back to the quantum wall. "Why? Are you having doubts?"

"No, I'm giving you a choice to tell me now and back out."

"Thanks," Daniel said bitterly. "Nice to know how indispensable I am."

Jack stared at the archeologist, speechless.

Dropping his head close to his chest, Daniel exhaled softly. "Sorry...I didn't mean for it to sound so...I don't know."

"I would rather you stay on my team," Jack admitted.

"I need to be here and do this," Daniel stared at the ground. His gaze clouded over.

"I saw you all die, Jack."

"But I didn't."

"No, not in this reality...But it's still the same."

"I don't think so." Tapping his foot, Jack checked his watch. "Our reality is what's important. You can't save them all. It's a nice thought, slap it on a Hallmark card, but you can't save them all."

"There was absolutely no hope," Daniel went on as if he didn't hear Jack, eyes glued to the ceiling. "They didn't know what was coming. They fought...s-so hard, and then it was over, despite their best efforts." Daniel grimaced and closed his eyes.

"They died for me, Jack. They gave me their time to dial out and died in order for me to escape. Everyone." Shuddering once more, Daniel lowered his head.

Goosebumps ran up Jack's arms. "You never did say exactly what happened in that alternate reality, Daniel."

"I came. I saw. They died."

"Hey," O'Neill protested in a light voice. "That's my line—" he stopped when he heard the thunder again, loud enough to make the room shake. "Damn storm. Maybe we should have brought umbrellas, huh?"

Daniel stilled as vibrations shook the room. He looked across at the mirror; Sam was still working with the others to push the rover. Glancing up, he again saw no flash of lightning, but the sky began to darken visibly through the cracks.

"Jack..." Daniel whispered.

The colonel turned inquisitively towards Daniel.

"Tell them to stay back."

"Huh?"

Daniel still on the DHD platform, stared at his friends from across the room, his teammates oblivious to the activity on his side. "Sam...tell them to stop!"

"What? Why?" Jack froze when the rumbling grew, and he too, looked up at the sky. The sky was black now, pitch black as if the sun was covered from view.

Or the building was being covered.

"Shit!" Jack darted over to the mirror.

Sam looked up and saw the colonel waving, mouthing something as Daniel stayed on the DHD, gripping the console for some reason. She couldn't catch the words, but she saw something that made her stand up straight, gaping at it, open mouthed at something behind O'Neill's shoulder.

Seeing her attention was drawn elsewhere, Jack spun around and gawked at the Stargate.

The first chevron was lit.

"Daniel!"

Turning his head to the Stargate, Daniel caught a glimpse of the first chevron lighting. The room trembled violently, coupled with the Stargate humming and whatever it was looming over its damaged roof.

"No!" Jack was hollering at the mirror, and Daniel twisted around to them. The colonel was shaking his head, waving his hands violently when he saw Carter and the others preparing to come across. "Stay back! Don't!"

Even though she couldn't hear him, Sam understood and reluctantly lowered her rifle, stepping back. She watched anxiously as the colonel dashed back, grabbed Daniel roughly by the arm and turned to start heading for the mirror.

Flash of light.

Five transport rings tumbled down from nowhere and appeared a foot away from the colonel's position, blocking his escape.

The second chevron lit up.

"Everyone behind the rovers! We can't let them see us!" Sam barked, waving her arm to shoo them back. She could see the colonel doing the same, hopping back on the platform, the mirror flickering in response as it reactivated on Jack's side. He hauled Daniel over, shoving him down behind the DHD but not before tossing a grenade into the vertical rings. The round explosive plunked into the center of the rings just as a blue beam flowed down, a dimly lit figure in the center.

Another flash as the grenade blew.

Whatever, whoever was transporting down never made it.

Black smoke from the grenade Jack tossed, charred bodies from the explosions collapsed on the floor in front of the mirror, obscuring the view of the room with smoke and burning red-hot flames. The others on Sam's side of the mirror didn't catch the moment the next set of rings came down from behind the rover and neither did the colonel as he busied himself grabbing another grenade in preparation, wincing at the collecting smoke.

"Jack," Daniel hissed, flinching as the next grenade blew within the teleport rings. He thought he heard someone screaming but didn't dare look up above the DHD to check. "They can't see the mirror! We have to get off this platform!"

Nodding, Jack leaned his head out the side of the DHD column. Grunting when he saw black smoking lumps by the mirror, he got up.

The third chevron lit.

"Shit," Jack yanked Daniel up. "Okay, we're going to have to make a run for it."

"We can't leave the mirror open for them," Daniel argued.

Fourth chevron lit.

The rumbling grew louder. It sounded like something was on top of them.

"We don't have a choice!" Jack spun Daniel around so he was facing the mirror. "Get over there now!"

"What about you?"

Fifth chevron engaged.

O'Neill was screaming now. "I'll be right after you! I'll keep something on the damn thing and toss another grenade over it to blast it off!" Jack gave Daniel a shove off the platform. "Now go!"

Daniel took one step towards the mirror, towards the frantic expressions peering close to the surface on the other side. He sidestepped the bodies, reaching out to touch the mirror—

And something exploded inches from his face.

"Daniel!"

Heat seared him as one of the statues blew apart from a staff weapon blast. He was thrown back. He dropped to the floor and found himself staring at the smothering empty sockets of one of the unlucky Jaffa guards who were beaming down in the destroyed teleport rings.

"Daniel, you all right?" Jack hollered over the sound of his own rifle spitting out its projectiles before he was forced to duck back down when another blast struck the coverstone he was on. Rifle fire sputtered from his barrel as Jack caught sight of Jaffa guards peering out from behind the rovers, trying to find a way to get over to the center of the room. He raised his weapon and fired in their general direction. The guards jumped back. He could hear more shouting.

Sixth chevron locked.

"Daniel!" Jack yelled, frantic when he didn't see his friend move, prone, parallel to the bodies of the first group of guards. He looked around the DHD, crouching down immediately before another staff weapon blast sailed over where his head had been, impacting with the wall off the side. "Daniel! God damn it, answer me!" He lowered his weapon, shuffling as close as he could without exposing himself from behind the DHD column.

"I'm okay..." Daniel croaked, feeling the bits and shards of metal and stone grinding into his vest and stomach. He blinked, bile rising up his throat as he found an open mouthed blackened skull gawking at him and tore his sight away from the gruesome view. By the sound of renewed staff fire, he realized the guards were diverting their attentions to Jack. Concealed behind the bodies, Daniel dared to lift his head an inch, staring across to the mirror a few frustrating feet away.

Sam was so close, she would have fallen through to the other reality, saying something to him, gesturing wildly. John and Teal'c were beside her, primed and ready, determined to go through the mirror.

But he couldn't let them. He couldn't. There were too many of them.

Another shot sailed over him, right at the mirror. Daniel shot up his head in horror. "Look out!"

The wall flashed once and vanished. He heard Sam shouting as the soldiers lunged for the ground, some rolling under the rover as the energy ball shrieked past their heads. The blast landed somewhere behind them, and he vaguely heard something crash.

"Daniel! Get back over—" John shouted from his side before the wall slammed between them once more.

Seventh...engaged.

A column of light spun out of the Stargate before calming to the usual pool.

"Jack! The Stargate!" Daniel fired wildly at the guards trying to emerge from the rover. At the click of his empty weapon, he fumbled for another clip.

"I know!" Jack stood up and tossed two grenades in front of the towering ring. He vaguely saw a silver ball tumble out of the event horizon and two pairs of feet stomping out before the twin orbs exploded. He flinched as he saw a pair of something staggering out, engulfed in flames.

The wormhole snapped shut.

Daniel jerked his head towards the idle Stargate, then at Jack. The colonel smiled grimly, his teeth bared as he eyed the still burning bodies by the Stargate.

"They've deciding that knocking is really not a good idea right now!" Jack bellowed back before he was forced to duck, hitting his chin on the carved symbols of the coverstone. He hissed as stone bits slashed by him. "God damn it! Can you see how many from your side?"

"I see five!" Daniel shouted back, covering his head with his arms as something exploded to his right, close to the wall. "But I could be wrong!" He raised his eyes and saw a charred spot on the mirror, and his chest clenched. Whatever it was blew up right over the mirror, inches away from the surface. Not enough to travel through but close enough to spew ash on its surface, right over John O'Neill's white face. He saw everyone gawking back at him, John surging forward to lunge at the mirror, only to be grabbed by Teal'c who tackled him to the floor.

Daniel felt a pang of fear thundering his heart, adrenaline making the blood roar in his ears. They couldn't come through to help, and he couldn't get over there, leaving Jack behind. He knew there was no way Jack could leave now, no way to cover their tracks, hide their escape.

Daniel slammed the clip into his sidearm, stuck it above the heap of bodies and fired wildly in their direction. He heard someone curse in Goa'uld, and he felt a surge of satisfaction, enough to lift his head up.

A ball of energy shot right at him.

Yelping, Daniel dropped his head and felt the heat of the staff blast soaring over him, shattering a statue behind him. Something rolled to his view. Gawking at it, he realized it was the destroyed statue's face, the twisted smirk sneering back at him without its body.

"Keep your head down!" Jack waved angrily at Daniel. Jack didn't know what the odds were. He couldn't risk any more people. He made a cutting motion, aborting any notion Carter might have had about coming through and pointed to the sky. Carter followed his hand upward, and her eyes widened. She knew. "Daniel, for God's sakes, get through that thing!"

Daniel ducked when one stray staff weapon blast came close to his head. He peered over the rubble, what was left of the supplies on the shot-ridden rover and shouted back. "What about you?"

"I'll be right behind you! I...damn it!" Jack threw himself down on the floor when he felt the place shake, unhappy with the activity happening inside. "Go! Get out of here!" Jack hollered, waving at Daniel.

Daniel dared another look over to the DHD only to duck down again when it ensured a barrage of staff weapons firing in his direction. He flung his hand over the makeshift protection and wildly fired his pistol towards their direction. He couldn't tell if he hit anything, but judging by the increase of staff fire, he must have pissed somebody off. He was forced to curl up as small as he could behind the guards' corpses as the barrage got closer and closer to his spot, dead limbs twitching as staff fire landed on the bodies instead of him. He tossed out the empty clip and refilled, waving the gun wildly above the pile and firing in their general direction.

"Jack!" he shouted, finally daring to raise his head a little, twisting like a contortionist to see the colonel while still ducking safely behind his refuge.

"Shit..." The colonel slid down lower to the ground and eyed the shiny wall. He knew the guards weren't in the center chamber yet, so they didn't see the unsettling reflection of other people and a twin Stargate. He whistled sharply and saw Daniel crouch down again. Jack got up sharply, teeth yanking out the pin, and he threw the grenade as far as he could. The bulb sailed over Daniel, past the equipment they were transferring and bounced into the inner rooms where the guards were.

The explosion caused the entire place to shake, debris covering the smaller doorways temporarily. It also caused some of the weapons they brought over in the carriers to react and another explosion followed as it burst into flames, bringing more rubble down. A wall of fire arose, greedily eating the rover, the debris from their battles, blocking the Jaffa from entering the center chamber. A temporary reprieve. Jack gritted his teeth as he staggered to his feet.

"You okay?" he asked as Daniel half crawled, half walked until he could regain his balance. Stumbling around as he held onto the DHD device, Jack watched grimly as the flames slowly died down. He reached down to his belt and found it was empty. "Shit, I'm out."

"If we could get a statue over to the coverstone, we could leave the portal open, leap through and leave a bomb here to destroy the statue, closing the portal after us." Daniel scanned the area for one he could move over.

"Daniel," O'Neill repeated it louder. "I'm out."

Startled eyes whipped back over to the DHD. Jack stood on the coverstone, hands open. Daniel got up to the platform. "What do you mean?"

"That was it. I threw the last one to block them. But it's not going to last." Narrowing his eyes, Jack eyed the mirror. "You'd better go through and—"

Something slammed on top of the structure, and Jack fell to the floor. He dimly felt Daniel landing on his legs. The chamber darkened, cracks on the ceiling lost what little light was left.

"It's the battleship!" Daniel tried to get up, only to get tossed over the edge of the coverstone with the next vibration.

"You think?" the colonel grated out as he clawed the DHD, gripping on to anything he could get his hands on. He played with the notion briefly of tossing Daniel through the portal while the guards were distracted. Jack struggled to get up. Fingers fumbling for a hold, grabbing the DHD edge, Jack felt something...click.

"Oh my God," Jack breathed as he saw the wall shimmer once and then still. Daniel whipped his head up at the sight.

"What the?" Daniel craned his neck to see if Jack had noticed. Sure enough, the colonel was gaping at the wall. "Did you see that?"

"Uh...yeah." Jack numbly pointed to the DHD device. "My fingers...slipped under something and—"

Daniel got up and stumbled over to where the colonel was, his eyes glued to the stone covered rooms. He could hear the guards trying to clear the way. "What did you do? Are we still set for our reality?" He sat down and peered under the DHD and saw a copper colored coil, imbedded between the usual flat panel of the bottom. Feeling his hand over the coil, he felt it move.

The wall shimmered once more.

Carter, noting something had changed, was yelling at the mirror, but she was pointing to the wall.

"It's the dial." Getting up, Daniel felt the building rock as the battleship above them settled on top of the structure. "The entire platform is the control for the portal! It never reset before because we never had the dial device turned!" He felt the smooth coil and felt it give under his touch, the sensitive surface barely definable wrapped under the DHD edge. If one weren't looking for it, no one would know it was ever there. "We could switch the realities, Jack," he whispered.

Jack stared at Carter's face as he asked Daniel in a calm voice. "You have any clips left?"

"No." Daniel didn't need to check his weapon. "You wouldn't happen to have any bombs left?"

"No."

An explosion, a whine of a zat gun shot out and the last of the debris vanished.

"Jack...we can't..."

"I know." Jack looked down at the DHD, his jaw clenched. "Turn it."

Daniel didn't protest. He didn't argue. He looked over to Sam, mouthed "Good-bye" and slipped his fingers underneath the DHD dial. Studying the gold coil circling the entire circumference of the dial, its width barely the size of his thumb, Daniel pressed against it and found it slid left and right. He pressed down on the coil.

The wall shimmered once.

Jack could see Carter was realizing what they were doing. Could see the choice he needed to make. She ran to the mirror with Ferretti and John directly at her heels.

"Daniel, do it."

Daniel turned the coil sharply to the left.

And the image vanished, a blur of light, until it solidified to a view of a chamber like theirs. The Stargate in the same spot, the DHD where it should be.

But no Carter. No Teal'c. No John.

"Jack," Daniel flinched when he heard the rubble blasted away. He stumbled off the platform and looked at Jack. "Get off the coverstone."

Colonel O'Neill...stepped off.

The mirror's surface gleamed, twisting the image until he saw his own face staring back.

Another explosion and he could hear the Jaffa shouting as they surged forward. He felt Daniel come up to him.

"Carter's a smart girl. She'll figure it out."

Daniel heard the whine of rings shooting down behind them. "I know."

"We'll get out of this."

"I know."

Jack wanted to say something more, something that didn't sound lame, but before he could, he found over a dozen staff weapons aimed right at him, faces with black inked tattoos marking them as Ra's glaring at them.

"Five, eh?" Jack remarked archly, trying not to flinch as one of the guards poked the staff weapon at his belly. "Would you mind not poking that at me?" he snarled at the Jaffa, only getting another stab at his hip with it.

"I said I could be wrong," Daniel whispered back, starting as one weapon jabbed right into his ribs.

"Ski lik furo mak!"

A few weapons jabbed at his and Daniel's back. Taking the hint, Jack raised his hands, grimacing as he felt gloved hands rummaging at his pockets, fumbling around his vest.

"Nen tok! Krem _re'klya_ no mal! No mal!"

Jack saw one of the other guards, with a gold tattoo gleaming on his forehead branding him First Prime, grab Daniel, spinning him around until he was nose to nose with the archeologist. The large olive skinned Jaffa eyed Daniel for a long moment before spitting at his face. Daniel didn't flinch at the spittle dripping down his collar. Alien laughter rumbled from deep inside the Jaffa's chest, not at all impressed by the expression of indifference on Daniel's face. O'Neill lunged forward, but got jerked back, his arms pulled behind him. The First Prime studied Jack carefully, his thick braid dangling behind him from the center of his skull as he shook his head, dismissing Jack. The Jaffa turned his attention back to Daniel instead with a lazy smile. The colonel could only watch helplessly as the guard took out a black orb.

"Shem _re'klya_," the First Prime hissed, pressing a hidden button on the orb. The small palm-sized marble blossomed open and a beam shot out.

An image of Daniel's face rotated around in the beam.

Staring at it with shock, Jack heard the head Jaffa grunting in verification, tilting Daniel's face forcibly back with a sharp pinch of his hand on his jaw and comparing it to the floating hologram. And Jack realized.

It wasn't Daniel's face projected in the beam.

It was Dan.

"No! He's not who you—"

A staff weapon slammed down on his shoulders, and Jack fell to his knees.

"Jack!"

O'Neill dimly heard some struggling, and he tried to rise when he felt another blow.

"No, leave him alone—"" Daniel got cut off, bringing Jack to his senses. His head whipped up.

"Tem lak!" Another blow.

Ears ringing, Jack felt a kick to his side. Clawing his way up to awareness, he felt the guards surrounding them, kicking, hitting, and he could barely bring up his hands to block the flurry of blows. He heard Daniel grunting, succumbing finally. Darkness gripped his senses, dragging him, pulling him under, and Jack barely had a chance to croak out his friend's name before tumbling into unconsciousness.


	16. Chapter 15

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

The Stargate snapped shut behind the remainder of the team. Carter dropped her pack at once, the impact loud in the embarkation room which had gone unusually silent. Teal'c's face was stoic, barely reacting when John swore strongly, throwing his cap down the ramp.

"Damn it!" John raged, banging the rail, ignoring the startled stares from the technicians. Not bothering to wipe the streaks of dirt off his face, John was about to stalk past the general when the man stopped him.

"What happened?" Hammond asked, a hand on his shoulder. He didn't drop it even when John gave him a smoldering look.

"We got ambushed," John said curtly, gesturing to Carter and Teal'c who were behind him. The major nodded, confirming what he said. "Your colonel and Jackson were on the other side, receiving the supplies when they heard a ship arriving over their heads."

"They couldn't come back?" Hammond asked, stunned.

Teal'c shook his head. "We witnessed the wall changing, and the reality switched."

"They was trying to make sure the Goa'ulds couldn't come into our reality. They were pinned under enemy fire and couldn't go across to us. They reset the mirror somehow, and it affected us as well." Sam looked as shocked as Hammond knew she must have looked when it happened. "We left SG-3 there to wait in case they come back. I thought we'd better return and figure out from the video what Daniel did to make the realities switch." She waved her camera, blackened with soot, at the general. "We had it filming from a distance everything we were doing. I think the DAT tape is still salvageable. Maybe we can duplicate what he did and get back to the same reality."

Nodding, Hammond sighed, rubbing the sides of his temples wearily. "I hope so, Major. I hope so." He now turned his attention back to John. "Your brother is awake, Captain."

John stood stiffly in front of the general. "Is he?"

Hammond glowered at the captain, ignoring the puzzled looks on Carter's and Teal'c's faces. "And he told me what you did. While I understand your motives, I don't think your Doctor O'Neill appreciated being drugged against his will and left behind—"

"What?" Carter exclaimed.

"Can you really blame me?" John snarled, about to stomp away when General Hammond grabbed his arm.

"I can't say I do, son," Hammond said quietly. John kept his back towards him. "But...I think the last thing your brother needed was to wake up to find himself alone." He bit back the rest of what he wanted to say. About how Dan was in a panic when he learned John had left without him. Doctor Fraiser gave him a mild tranquilizer. Hammond stared at the captain disapprovingly.

"I would have come back," John said hoarsely, wrenching his arm away.

"That wasn't the point." Hammond made no attempt to stop him as John stalked away. He followed behind him, aware of Carter and Teal'c doing the same. Making no attempt to catch up and match pace with John as they went down the hallway, Hammond only called out to his back. "It wasn't the fact you would come back, I don't think you should have—"

John spun around, stopping everyone in their tracks. He jabbed a finger into Hammond's chest to Carter's shock. "What I decide in regard to my brother is our business and not yours. I don't mean any disrespect, sir, but Dan understands I am doing this for his own good."

General Hammond didn't look bothered at all by the fact John was towering over him with a snarl on his face. Nevertheless, his voice was tight and stiff when he glanced up at John.

"Perhaps you should speak with your brother right now...Captain O'Neill."

Glowering at Hammond, John lowered his hand. "I will." He spun on his heels and stalked away.

"Sir?" Carter spoke up anxiously, barely able to stand still.

Hammond stared at the doors as they slid shut behind John. "Major, we'll leave them to sort this out. Right now, you and I have to discuss how we're going to get our Jack O'Neill and Doctor Jackson back."

Staring down the hallway at the disappearing figure brushing past soldiers without so much as an apology, Sam nodded. She turned back towards the Stargate, her heart heavy. She could still see Daniel saying good-bye, the colonel standing beside him, grim, tight-lipped, but with eyes brimming with determination. Carter glanced back to Teal'c and saw the Jaffa doing the same, gazing at the idle Stargate. The two then slowly followed after the general to the briefing room.

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Dan was already sitting with his legs over the side of the bed when John entered. Doctor Frasier got halfway up from her seat, a syringe in her hand, and John froze.

"What the hell is that?" John demanded, going over to her. Janet stuck the needle back in a black carry bag, snapping it shut before he could see. "What were you giving him?"

"You're back," Dan said in a flat voice.

John looked at his brother now. "Yeah. Something went wrong over—"

"Doctor Frasier, would you excuse us, please?" Dan asked, ignoring John.

"Now hold on, I want to know what was in that needle—"

"Please, Doctor," Dan whispered. He got up shakily, swaying for a moment before he dared to take one step and hobbled over in the direction of John's voice. Janet paused by the door to make sure he was okay.

Not realizing Janet hadn't left yet, Dan turned his head, trying to figure out where John was. Taking another step, he asked quietly. "Where are you?"

John reached out, touching Dan's hand. "Here. Over here."

Dan nodded, hobbled over until he was inches away from John's face. John grabbed him before he could fall, and Dan held on to his brother's forearms. Dan straightened and took a deep breath.

Then, with a hard swing, Dan punched John right on the jaw.

Reeling back a step, surprised it actually hurt, John was too stunned to do anything more than hold his jaw with his hand. Janet, shocked, gasped before she could stop herself, and Dan heard.

Realizing there was an audience, Dan lowered his hand. "Close the door."

Janet was too shocked to move.

Dan's voice hardened, raspy as he shouted, "Close the door! Close the damn door!" He flung out his arms, felt a chair nearby and threw it at the door as hard as he could. Though the furniture didn't come near her, the doctor still flinched. "Close the fucking door!" Dan screamed as he staggered back.

"Dan!" John grabbed hold of Dan's waist before he could stumble without the support. He glanced over his shoulder, saw Janet's blanched face, and he nodded, asking her to go. The doctor, staring at Dan, hesitated only for a moment, before she slipped out the door and shut it behind her.

Turning back towards his brother, John found himself under a fury of fists striking his chest, scraping his chin on occasion, Dan pounding at him. He grabbed Dan's wrists, stopping the attack. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Another punch to his cheek and John released his hold in surprise.

"Didn't think I could still hit, did you?" Dan ranted. "Didn't think a blind man could get one past you? Damn you! Why?"

"Will you hold still?" Wrapping an arm around Dan's waist again, John tried to bodily drag him to the bed before Dan could harm himself. "You're going to fall if you..." Another punch right at his mouth made his hands flinch, letting go automatically. "Dan!"

"Son of a bitch!" Dan twisted, trying to break free to strike once more. He slipped one hand out and swung, striking John at the collarbone. "You god damn, son of a bitch!" he shouted, shoving John away. The move made Dan recoil back, stumbling until his back struck the bedpost.

John tried to grab hold of Dan again, but the younger man pushed his hands away. "Don't touch me! Get away from me, you jerk!"

"What the hell is going on?" John grabbed Dan by the shoulders, shaking him. "What are you doing? Calm down!"

"Calm down? Calm down?" Dan seemed to get more and more upset. "Do you even know what you did? Can you even begin to figure out what you did to me?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" John forced Dan to sit down, but the younger man wouldn't sit still. Knees knocking, arms trembling, Dan got up anyway, grabbing John's jacket and tugging at it.

"You...you...have you any idea how I felt when I woke up here?" Dan swung his arms out to the room. "Alone? Do you know what that was like for me to find out you'd left again?"

John stepped back as if he was physically hit again. "I..." He gawked at the red spots staining Dan's pale cheeks. "I..."

"How could you? How could you leave me behind like that?" Dan, no longer able to stand on his feet, clung to the bedpost gasping. "We were supposed to go back together! You lied to me! Right to my face! How could you?"

Glued to his spot, John couldn't get himself to venture close enough to help Dan back to the bed. He had been prepared to explain, to tell Dan how he wanted him to be safe, but he'd never prepared himself for this anger. The older brother found himself stammering for the first time. "I-I would have come back for you."

"That's not the point!" Dan wiped his face with his hand. He choked back a shuddering sob which wanted to escape his throat. "I woke up all alone, and I didn't know where you were. I wasn't even sure if all that happened before was real..." Dan sounded distant. "I thought maybe all of that was a dream...some wishful thinking...you never came, and we never escaped, and I was finally waking up to the truth and..."

John couldn't stand there any more. He walked over, gripping Dan by the shoulders. "Listen to me. I knew it was going to be bad there. I couldn't put you at risk. I was only trying to protect you!" He couldn't stop himself from shaking Dan.

"I know what's there waiting for us. I'm not stupid. You have no right to make that sort of decision for me!" Dan lifted his head towards John, his chin jutted out stubbornly. "You don't know..." He sank slowly to the floor. "You just don't know what it was like waking up in the dark all alone...God..." Dropping to the floor, Dan sat there, hunched over, one hand clinging to the bedpost as if to pull himself up, but he couldn't find the strength. "I was afraid this had all been some crazy dream, some wishful thinking on my part." Head bowed, Dan took one deep breath after another, his hand slipping off the post and dropping to his lap. He sat there, arms wrapped around his middle.

John dropped to his knees next to Dan. "I..."

"I don't want to wake up like that again. I woke up, and I didn't know where you were..." Dan hiccupped, shrugging away John's touch, his arms going tighter around himself. "It was like finding that damn note again, telling us to stay hidden while you...with some reckless plan..." Dan was barely audible, his body trembling, the strain from all the fighting catching up to him.

John closed his eyes and drew Dan to his chest. His brother stiffened at first, fist raised as if to strike him again, but when John wrapped his arms around his back, Dan dropped it.

"I'm sorry..." John's whisper cracked over his ear. "I swear I didn't...it never occurred to me...I just wanted to make sure you'd be okay. I wanted to come back and take you home to a world no longer ruled by that monster. I wanted to be able to walk through the Stargate with you."

Dan sounded muffled inside his embrace. He finally drew his arms up around John. "Swear to me you'll never do something like that again. Swear."

"Where you go, I go," the older man whispered. He enveloped Dan tighter. "Where I go, you go. Fair?"

Dan leaned into John's chest like he was a kid again and his older brother was here to soothe the bad dreams of Lily and all the mean people away. "F-fair." The word tasted foul in his mouth. _Where you go, I go, but you can't go where I will_. The sob he was holding back finally escaped, and he buried his face deeper into John's flightsuit, clutching the hem as he tried to stay quiet.

"I won't leave you alone again," John whispered, stroking his brother's back, feeling the trembling under his palms. "I'm so sorry...I promise you...we'll go together...no matter what...no matter where."

For some reason, Dan seemed to cry harder, John's words not soothing him as John had intended. John didn't know what to do, so he just held him, his only family left by his side and whispered the vow over and over again.

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She watched as the guards appeared behind the stacked teleport rings in the main court, their hawk helmets gleaming in the blue glow of the beam. As the light vanished, revealing who was slumped over their shoulders like sacks, she stiffened.

"What is it?" an arrogant voice demanded in Goa'uld, accented slightly different in the royal dialect. He waved a smooth, white hand at the servants he had around his steps, and they scurried away to make room for the guards approaching. Dark hair braided and pulled back like dreadlocks, adorned with gems and occasional naquada because he liked how the mineral hummed with the Stargate, Jermak abhorred messes just like Ra. So when the marked and his kin fled the stronghold, the Goa'uld was beyond reason, even killing the guards who came to report on the loss. He was furious. To a point, she didn't dare to try and soothe him with her pretty words and sway of hips. She was forced to wait, bide her time to dare stay by his side.

She felt Jermak pull away from her, his long fingers encrusted with bands of gold drifting reluctantly away from her tanned bare shoulder. She tried not to shudder and felt a quiver inside her soul instead as she quietly pulled her spidery shawl over her henna tattooed skin. Quietly, hoping he wouldn't remember she was here as usual and dismiss her with the others, she sat by his throne in her regular spot and listened.

"We have recovered the _re'klya_ and his brother, Lord Jermak."

She froze, but her companion didn't notice as he rubbed his hands together. "What about his lordship and his guards?"

"We did not see them, Lord Jermak."

Jermak chuckled, his dual voice rolling with delight. "Ah! His dog has failed! This is much better than I had planned. Once we draw our prey..." He clapped his hands and laughed again.

She lay there, keeping calm as she felt him reach down and pet her hair.

"Good, good. She would be pleased. Take them to the pits and send a messenger to her. She will want to talk to them before we return them to our lord Ra."

The guards bowed. They reshouldered the bodies and behind her hair, she caught a glimpse of light colored hair, arms swinging.

"You have been my companion for so long," Jermak murmured, taking her hand, signaling that she might rise. She did so, pasting a pleasant smile on her face and held still as he drew in and kissed the curve of her neck.

"He comes in seven days. Once we rid ourselves of Ra..." the Goa'uld leader chuckled, his deep voice vibrating against her throat. "I shall make you my consort and her my queen, and we three shall reap the rewards of the fallen glory of Tau'ri." He pulled back and studied her with a broad smile. "Does that not please you?"

"Of course," she replied, drifting her hands up his arms, the gold bands strapped around his biceps and purred. She swung her hair back, smiling at him coyly. "But I do not understand."

"Oh?"

"Ra is of great anger," she whispered as if fearing his name. "One who destroyed Troylan and Orban when they refused to ally with him and they now lie in waste like rocks in the stars. If he should find out—"

Jermak shushed her, stroking her hair as he shook his head. "He will be walking into our stronghold with his guards, thinking his lapdogs are sitting along with us, his _re'klya_ and brother waiting for his own blade." He laughed, the sound ringing in the chamber. "They will believe it to be Tok'ra, and we can moan our lord's departure from the living realm as we sit high on his throne." The idea pleased him. Pleased him so much that he couldn't stop laughing, his attention now diverted from her perfumed body and hair. He shook his head, getting up and strolling down the steps.

"I need to speak with my guest, ensure her of our victory."

_And sleep in her bed_, she thought, but kept the obedient smile on her face. "I shall be waiting, Lord Jermak."

"Of course you will." The Goa'uld waved at her, dismissing her and left the chamber, still laughing to himself.

She waited a long moment, holding her breath. Then she cautiously pulled out a small cube. The device warmed in her palm, humming with activity the moment she touched it, and softly, she whispered into it.

"Commander...they are here."

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The darkness lifted a little, and Jack saw himself being dragged across the floor by the ankles. Tall walls of gray stone and carved statues of hawks glaring down at him emerged out of the murk and scrolled by his sight as he was slid across a cold floor.

_Shit…déjà vu_, Jack thought as he saw the backs of three hawk shaped helmets, the bold contours of heavy armor wrapped around thick arms and legs, the familiar white kilt they wore replaced with thick leather pants plated with additional armor. He winced as he struck a corner, the Jaffa guards beyond caring. When cold smooth tiles became hard cobblestones, Jack knew what was coming next.

The colonel struggled briefly, getting another smack in the head for it, before they shoved him down the narrow square hole without warning.

He fell three feet, splashing down hard in a pool of icy water. He sank a bit before shooting back up with a garbled gasp, spitting out foul tasting water. Breaking above the surface, he caught a shadow over the opening and swore. He threw his arms up in time and caught the body they discarded.

Daniel fell, nearly hitting Jack before he sank. The older man ignored the rough laughter above him as the iron barred door shut over them. He took a deep breath and dropped below the surface, fishing for Daniel's jacket. His numb fingers snagging a corner of the young man's sleeve, he pulled at it, kicking his feet hard to bring them both up.

Air slapped against his face, chilled and biting, but Jack welcomed its embrace as he gulped the oxygen. He turned Daniel until the young man was facing away from him, and he pulled him close to his chest, wrapping his arms around Jackson's torso to keep him afloat. Then, with a quick thrust, Jack jabbed his fists just below the diaphragm. It got an immediate response.

Daniel jerked, coughing, water spewing from his mouth. He lashed out at his unseen assailant, legs kicking furiously.

"Whoa! Whoa! Calm down! It's me!" Jack shouted. He let go and rotated Daniel around until they were face to face.

"J-jack?" Daniel moaned softly. He sagged, sinking below the water again. Jack reached out and yanked him towards him. "What happened?"

"We got caught," Jack struggled to keep Daniel above water. "Hold on…can you stay afloat?"

"I think so." But Daniel sank further. Jack rolled his eyes, turned Daniel around again and settled him against his chest. Startled, Daniel tried to pull away.

"Easy, easy." Jack's voice rumbled close to his ear. "Relax…I won't let you sink…just gather your strength. When you're more alert, you let me know, okay? Last I checked, I ain't a lifesaver."

Daniel laughed, wincing as it pulled at his chest. Groaning, hand back up to his head, he mumbled, trying to get his mouth to work properly, "You okay?"

"Yeah." Jack eyed the walls. "Damn…here's a place I didn't want to visit again."

"Huh?"

The colonel remembered. "That's right. You've never been here. You were…er…"

"Dead," Daniel supplied the term. He tried to pull away, to not drag Jack under with his weight, but the dizziness returned in full force, and his head dropped forward.

"Yeah, when you were swiss cheesed—will you hold still?" Jack's arms tightened around Daniel's chest. "Relax…I can hold on for a bit more. Just get your sea legs first, okay?"

"'Kay." Daniel tilted his head back, surprised to feel Jack shift underneath him so his shoulder could pillow it. He stared at the grating above.

"You were in here that whole night?" Daniel asked, cutting into the noise of their legs kicking in the water to keep afloat.

"Yeah." Jack glared at his surroundings. "Wasn't exactly fun."

"Well…considering the alternative," Daniel joked weakly. "I'd rather be in here than—Jack!"

The colonel jerked. "What?"

Daniel swam away from his friend. He turned around, his eyes wide. His arms waved in front of him as he spoke in an anxious voice.

"We can't let them know we're not…you know…who they think we are."

Jack narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"I heard the guards talking as they took me. We're on Jermak's ship. Jermak? Remember?"

Glowering, the colonel nodded. "I remember. My double said he was one of the head honchos."

"I overheard them. He's here, and so is his ally."

"Ally?"

Daniel shook his head. "I don't know who. They didn't say, but apparently, the guards don't know either. Jermak's ally is someone this Jermak person didn't want anyone to know about. There are personal guards everywhere, preventing anyone from checking the chambers." He kicked desperately to keep his head above water. "They're wondering how we were able to elude them for so long. We can't let them know we're from an alternate reality!"

"It's going to be hard to convince them once Ra notices you can pretty much see his ugly baby browns," Jack pointed out.

"That's not the point!" The archeologist waved a fist in the water, making a small wave in front of him.

"Then what _is _the point?" Jack returned heatedly.

Daniel swam closer, his voice lowered to a whisper. "We can't let them know we're from another reality. They might make the connection. Jack, they caught us on that planet. They'll know there's something strange about that place. If they make the association—" Daniel's legs kicked frantically underneath him as he struggled to stay above the surface.

"We can't let them through to our world. I don't want to see it begin in our reality!"

Jack swam over and clasped Daniel's shoulder firmly. "You won't."

"Only if they don't find out."

"They won't."

Daniel grabbed one of Jack's wrists, his own wrist glinting with the metal bracelet. "You have to call me Dan, and I have to call you John. No matter what happens, Jack."

The colonel narrowed his eyes. "Dan O'Neill was to be executed in a little over six days."

"I'm Dan O'Neill."

"No, you're not!"

"I have to be!" Daniel shouted back, squeezing Jack's hand to try and convey how serious the situation was. "Jack, no matter what, Daniel Jackson does not exist here. Neither does Colonel Jack O'Neill."

Brown eyes surveyed him seriously. "You're signing your own death warrant."

Daniel shrugged. "I won't be executed for another six days."

"You mean Dan."

"No." Daniel drifted away a bit in the water. "I mean me."

The older man looked at Daniel, his mouth a thin angry line.

"Alright…Doctor _O'Neill._" Jack scowled at Daniel. "But I don't like it."

"Neither do I." Daniel shrugged, trying to sound calm about it, but he could feel himself shaking. The older man saw this and cursed. "I'm just cold, Ja—" Daniel stopped and corrected himself. "John…just cold."

Jack floated closer, his legs pumping in a steady rhythm below him. "Six days, Daniel."

"Dan."

The older man scowled. "Alright. Dan. Six days. We have six days before he gets here. You'll be warm enough soon."

The young scientist forced himself to smile. "I know."

"You'd better."

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"Major Carter?"

Sam looked up from her video to find Teal'c standing by the doorway of the lab.

"I figured I might as well pass the time trying to figure out how they switched from our reality," the major muttered, pointing to the monitor. "But I haven't seen anything that looked like they found a dial or controls to the wall. SG-3 scoured all the rooms, and we found nothing that looked remotely like the device we had before."

Jack O'Neill's face glared into view, waving wildly at them.

"O'Neill did what he thought was best," Teal'c said. He watched with little reaction until Daniel came stumbling to a fall beside the bodies. Teal'c frowned. Daniel wasn't looking towards the camera, and his face was obscured with the smoke and fire, but Teal'c knew his friend's expression was anxious, grim as O'Neill's was, crouched down beside the DHD.

"I know he did," Sam murmured as she froze the film and fast-forwarded. "I just wish I knew _how_ he did it. We need to get them back, Teal'c."

"That is without question."

Sam swallowed, her hands dropping from the controls she was playing to search the video. "We left them behind in that place." Back where Dan and John came from. Back where Dan got his—She didn't allow herself to finish the thought.

"O'Neill knows we will be coming for them," Teal'c abruptly said.

Sam looked up blearily. "What?"

The Jaffa pointed to the screen. Carter nodded tiredly.

"I know...he thinks I can get them out of this, but I don't even know where to begin!" Carter exploded. Sighing, she dropped her head in her hands. She massaged her temples in small circles. "Sorry. I don't know what came over me."

"You are weary."

"I guess," Sam said numbly. "But I doubt I'm going to get rest any time soon."

Teal'c said nothing. He sat down on the chair next to her, deciding to wait with his comrade. It was the only thing he could offer as he gazed at the solemn faces on the monitor.

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The bright light glared down at his face. Jack jerked awake, one hand shielding his eyes, making out two dark shapes through teary eyes.

"Shon tok!" He recognized the First Prime and scowled. The Jaffa waved his staff weapon angrily down at the watery pit.

"Come on down," Jack quipped, splashing water up towards them. "The water's fine!"

"Sem chum clok!" Another guard gestured at the empty space where Daniel should be.

"Him?" Jack scowled at them. "He drowned. He couldn't stay afloat. Must be all those artifacts in his pockets."

Apparently, the guards didn't buy it. They stuck their staff weapon down at him, whacking him on the head before he could grab the long stick. His head ringing with the blow, Jack felt himself slamming against the side of the pit.

"I told you! He drowned! He's at the bottom of this goddamn piss hole!"

"Chu no mak! Kree!"

"Kree nothing! He's not here! Why don't you come down and check it yourself?"

One of the guards disappeared, and Jack wondered if they were going to empty the pit. He eyed the water apprehensively, hoping his hands splashing around was enough to hide the air bubbles.

A noose of rope flew down and looped around his throat before he realized it. Jack choked as the rough coil tightened. His hands went up to the rope, feet kicking fast in the current to keep the waves going.

"Kree tel huk! Kree!" The First Prime who held the noose shouted down to the water.

Jack couldn't speak. He could feel the rope constricting his airway, the pit changing to hues of purple and blue, spots of red dancing as air was prevented from going in.

"Kree tel huk!" the guard shouted again.

The one who'd disappeared before returned, staff weapon in hand, aimed for Jack's head. The head of the weapon spread open with a spark, and the colonel found himself staring at it inches away from his face.

_Stay down_, Jack thought, hoping the guards would come down to get them. Maybe he could grab their weapon or something. He twisted away from the staff, wheezing as the noose tightened another notch.

"Kree tel huk chet...shoom lak...shoom lak cy guk!" The head Jaffa holding the noose looked furious, screaming down at the water. Jack doubted the alien was trying to make conversation.

The bubbles disappeared.

Alarmed, Jack kicked at the water and felt a hand clawing his pants leg under the surface. It hadn't been three minutes, but Jack didn't know how long Daniel could stay underwater. It was too dark, and he couldn't see if his friend was okay.

"Shoom lak cy guk," the Jaffa said, and Jack saw the staff weapon retract a bit to aim. As Jack steeled himself, ready to dunk under the surface if needed, Daniel popped out of the water.

"Don't shoot!" Daniel cried out, half gasping, sputtering as he gulped in air. He waved his hands to show he had no weapons, as if they could find any here in their watery prison. "Don't shoot! I'm out! I'm out!"

Jack grimaced as the noose tightened further. Daniel heard his discomfort, spinning his head towards him before raising it to the pit opening.

"I came out! Stop!"

Deep laughter vibrated above their heads. "Stop it! He can't breathe!"

Jack wanted to say it was no good pleading his case, but he could barely croak a "Stop" before the rope squeezed tighter, and Daniel became very blurry. He dimly saw Daniel swimming over, frantically clawing at the noose, the laughter above sounding like howling as his ears pounded. His mouth opened, but all that came out was a garbled wheeze as he felt his friend slipping a hand under the loop, trying to pull it wide enough to pull his head out. Jack tried to help, he really did. But his hands felt like rubber now, his legs heavy as lead, so he missed the moment Daniel gasped before his hands were abruptly pulled away.

Suddenly, there was air.

"Shit!" Jack exploded, gulping stale, damp air as fast as he could, hands around his own sore throat. Forcing himself to keep treading water, he squinted his eyes, wondering what had happened to the noose and where Daniel went.

When his vision cleared, he found the answer to both questions.

"Stop it!" It was Jack's turn to shout as his own pain was forgotten. He splashed over and clawed at the noose around Daniel's neck. Daniel's eyes were pinned to Jack, half with relief that the noose was gone from Jack's throat, half with agony as his lips turned an ashy gray.

"God damn bastards! Can't handle a couple of humans by yourselves? Have to resort to these cheap shots?" Jack raged as he pulled at the staff connected to the rope instead. He yanked hard, trying to pull it away when he felt a hard bump against the back of his head. Jack slammed into Daniel. He could hear Daniel cough with the impact, but before O'Neill could check to see if he was okay, he felt another blow crashing against his skull.

Stars supernovaed behind his eyes or so it looked to Jack as he felt the staff weapon ramming down on him and Daniel again and again like a hammer. He vaguely heard Daniel shouting, the noose gone. Water kicked up from their struggles blinded him, and he couldn't see where Daniel was at all.

Darkness finally came, slowing his movements, and Jack could feel himself sinking along with Daniel. He heard the guards laugh, giving them one last whack with the staff weapon before he felt the water draining from the pit. Dimly, he thought maybe it was better they used it as a club than to fire point blank at their faces. But it was a fleeting thought as he dropped to the bottom of the drained pit, and slumped over his friend's body.


	17. Chapter 16

**Author's Note :** Hello all! I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone for the reviews. I've been away from fandom for what felt like a long time; I forgot how much I missed this. Each review was like a spark of enthusiasm sent my way. You get me excited about posting or writing the next part.

Many have asked about the print version, I thought I might as well mention it here. The print version is available through AgentWithStyle (dot) com. Warning though: this zine is 394 full size pages, double columns, Arial 9pt. It's tiny print. After many requests for a large print version, a CD zine version with 2 standalone stories in this universe was made. I unfortunately couldn't make it print because it came to over 1000 pages long and no way will that come out affordable! If you're interested in that one, please contact sales (at) pyramidspress (dot) com. It's not up on the site as available because this one will actually turn a profit of 1.30 each. The monies goes towards maintaining the stargatefan site. I didn't feel comfortable advertising it on the site, so currently, it's only by request only with the stipulation each reader is made aware of the profit margin for this one.

Okay, I've yakked enough. Cleo knows ho much I like to gab ;). Here's the next chapter! Thank you for reading and reviewing!

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**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

_"Chel touk...mak to neteru..."_

_Dan stirred from his spot behind the throne. Frowning, he could hear the lower caste Goa'uld stammering in a high voice as he tried to explain to Ra how he lost the secret naquada shipment to the rebels._

_A little bird told them, Dan thought with a half smirk, hidden within the folds of his arms._

_"Ha moot shel!"_

_Ra ignited his ribbon device on the poor, hapless Goa'uld who disappointed him so. He knew Ra was angry. Soon his wraith would turn to him as usual._

_"Fal mak!" Ra was getting even angrier now. _

_Dan tried to calm his breathing. He was supposed to be deaf mute, clueless to what was happening, to what would be happening. But as the anger grew in the Goa'uld god, pottery shattering, the small servants so frightened, they scampered for the curtains, Dan couldn't help but wish John was here. _

_John, he thought in dismay. He had no idea where his brother was. It had been almost...a year? She couldn't find any word about the rest of his family. Only that John was elsewhere, working, safe, oblivious to what was happening back on Earth, under the false assumption that they were safe. _

_But if John knew where he was and what happened to him, he would surely come after him. _

_Then, John would be dead._

_Or worse, be like him._

_Don't come, John, Dan prayed in his mind. Don't come looking for me._

_"Re'klya met sho!"_

_Dan swallowed his scream as the chain around his throat pulled, jerking him forward, numb legs dragging across the cold floor. He forced himself not to cry out as the first fist came down on him._

"I couldn't save you, Danny."

Dan stirred. Fuzzily, he realized he must have fallen asleep crying and flushed with the memory. He tried moving before realizing his brother was asleep as well, mumbling, his iron grip around him. John carried him to a more comfortable spot on the couch.

Alarmed, Dan realized his brother was crying, rocking him like a doll. John didn't even know he was awake.

"I never should have left you there."

Dan frowned. He couldn't move. John had him in such a tight hold, all he could do was raise his hand an inch, tucked in around his middle.

Dan could feel John shaking. "Couldn't save you then. Couldn't save you now." His brother didn't cry out loud, but the trembling told Dan enough. When John got lost in his memories, usually Sara could bring him out of it with her voice.

But she wasn't here.

He didn't know where she was. Or their mother. Or father. Or Sarah.

But he was here. For whatever time he had left.

"He wasn't supposed to play with the gun."

Charlie. Dan felt the sting of tears in his eyes when he thought of his nephew. God, hadn't John had enough?

"…he has you again...God..."

Dan frowned. _He?_ A chill went down his spine. _Ra? Ra's here?_

"Why couldn't I save at least you?"

Daniel.

John was talking about Daniel.

Oh God. Ra had Daniel.

It then occurred to him, he didn't know exactly what had happened back there. Or what went wrong that made John return, tight-lipped, as cold and hard as when Dan first found him conscious after Iraq.

_That was because I was too busy freaking out._

"Why couldn't I save you?" John moaned softly, the pain in his voice so sharp it brought tears to Dan's eyes.

"John...hey..." Dan slipped a hand out from his cramped position and tapped John on the cheek. He swallowed the lump back down his throat. "Ah man..." Dan croaked out, tapping more insistently at the stubbled cheek, "Come on, John...wake up..." He moved his hand to a hunched shoulder and shook it.

"Couldn't save you..." John kept mumbling.

Dan choked. "Man...don't do this...please...how can I go with you like this? John...wake up..." He panicked, shaking his brother harder. He could hear his muffled voice growing more and more distressed, grieving over something he couldn't prevent again. The thought of what would happen when John was left alone, when Dan finally was gone, made Dan shake him harder until his own teeth rattled.

"John! Damn it, please don't do this! Don't do this! You have to be okay!"

Like a snap, John woke. Startled, he sat there trying to regain some semblance of control while wondering why his brother sounded just as breathless.

"Hey, you awake?" He could hear Dan's tentative voice next to him. He leaned back into his seat and could feel Dan sitting up.

Rubbing his sore arms, Dan grimaced, hoping John didn't see.

"You okay?" John asked in a hoarse voice.

"Dandy." Dan shuffled away until his hip brushed against the couch on the opposite end. He swung his legs down and gingerly tried to stand. To his dismay, he felt his knees wobble, pitching him forward until John grabbed him before he crashed.

John always caught him. Always. Soon, he wouldn't have to.

"Whoa. Easy. Let me help you—" John jerked as Dan yanked his arm away and stubbornly felt his way towards the bed again. "Dan..."

"I'm fine," the younger man muttered. "I can do this."

John watched for a second before he reached out and grabbed him by the elbow. "Come on, don't be stubborn. Let me help you—"

"I said I was fine!"

Dan snatched his arm away, the move causing him to stumble the last remaining steps. Luckily, as his knees folded, they deposited him right on the bed to save him from yet another humiliating fall.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" John was stunned, still standing there with one hand out before Dan had pulled away.

"I...I don't want you to keep helping me."

Shaky, Dan sat up straighter, wishing Doctor Frasier would come soon. Already, the dull heat inside his gut was flaring up again, cramping his stomach, causing him to want to bend over, doubled in pain. "You don't owe me anything!"

Speechless, John stared at his brother. He moved his mouth wordlessly as Dan struggled to sit up, but he saw the younger man's hands were shaking. "W-what...what the hell are you talking about?"

"You shouldn't feel...obliged to make sure I'm okay all the time, John. I can't get anything done this way." Dan cringed at his own words. The sound of them left a sour taste in his mouth he couldn't swallow away.

_"Why couldn't I save you?"_

Dan's gut knotted. How many times did John say this when Ra had him? How many times did he say it about him, about their parents, about Sara?

_"Why couldn't I save you?"_

He could see John standing over his grave, saying the same thing.

Before he put a bullet in his head.

_Oh God, no..._

Dan clenched his fists. He knew what had to be done. But why in God's name did his chest hurt so bad thinking about it? "I don't want your help, John."

"Why the hell wouldn't I want to help you?" John was getting more and more confused. He couldn't understand. One moment Dan was upset about him leaving him behind. Then the next, he wanted to be left alone.

_Because when I'm gone, I have to make sure you'll be okay inthe end._ Dan felt his fists grow tighter in response to the pain, in response to the words he needed to say next. That bile taste in his mouth grew until he wanted to throw up. But he couldn't. Not yet. He had to make sure. _I have to say it._ "I can't...I can't stand this guilt trip you're hanging on me."

"Guilt trip? What guilt trip?" John was audibly trying to lower his voice, to keep from shouting, but the strain was evident.

Dan groaned inwardly as his lungs clenched. Just a few more words. That's all. A few more and everything'll be fine. He stuck out his chin, hoping it made him look mad. "

"I'm feeling suffocated. You're always hanging around as if it would make everything okay, as if I'm some sort of weakling. I...you're always hovering! Just back off. Please..."

"You don't want my help," John said flatly.

"No, I don't."

"Then what was all that crap about not leaving you behind?"

"That's not what I meant!" Dan snapped, trying to make his voice into a snarl, but it came out pathetic in his own ears. He couldn't tell if it was light or dark, and the last thing he needed was to have John see right through him. He shuffled until he was further up on the bed, back striking the wall. But it still didn't feel like he was far away enough so he resorted to leaning his forehead on the bedpost to hide his features. "I didn't want you to go around my back making arrangements, thinking it was for my own good." He choked. He couldn't say it.

"Let me do my job, John. Enough. Stop hovering. We're wasting time. I'm too t-tired to deal with your guilty conscience." Dan said it as fast as he could, as loudly as he could, and he could hear John suck in his breath.

John was silent for a moment. Dan hoped it meant he was thinking it over.

Finally, his brother spoke in a hoarse voice. "This isn't about me hovering, is it?"

Dan wearily lifted his head.

"You...you never forgave me for leaving you guys back there...when I went over to Ra."

_No, no, no! That's not it. No!_ Dan closed his eyes and shook his head. "No. You don't understand—"

"You and I never spoke about that time. How I left. And because of it...I wasn't there...wasn't there to prevent them from—" John stopped. Dan could hear him breathing heavily in front of him, as if the question was too hard to ask.

And perhaps this was the only way then.

Nothing else seemed to work. Dan could hear John's guilt every time he spoke. And knew if he didn't push hard enough, far enough away from him before he—

Dan felt his own throat close up as he croaked out, "I can't forget how you left us there. You don't know what they did. How hard I tried to stop them from taking us! From taking Sara!" _God forgive me._ His chest ached, throbbed with every word he was forced to spit out.

"You weren't there! I...I was there in that dark hellhole for almost a year before that son of a bitch gave me back to you like...like...some piece of garbage! I..." He felt himself stopping as he heard John taking a step back.

Clenching his fist, hiding it in his lap and pounding the other at the post to hide the shakes, Dan made himself continue. "None of this would have happened if you hadn't left us there!" Dan forced himself to scream at John.

Dan could hear his brother's raspy breathing, a fist pounding against a thigh and for a moment, just a moment, he wanted to take it all back, tell John it was all a lie and tell him there was nothing to forgive. Just tell him he could stay, help, and forget what would happen when Dan couldn't stay any longer to accept the comfort.

But John couldn't remain here with him. Dan didn't want his brother to see him go. He had to make sure John would be okay, with or without him, to keep on searching for everyone else.

"I...can't forgive you, John." _Because there's nothing to forgive._ "I don't want you hovering around me, choking me with your damn guilt. I want you to let me do my job! Let me go back and kill that bastard and be done with it!" Dan slumped back against the bedpost, exhausted.

Footfall.

Dan froze, thinking John was coming closer, to help him up, tuck him in, whatever John always did to make him feel comfortable. wanted to crawl to some corner and throw up everything that was twisting in his stomach. But he sat there, stubbornly clinging on to the bedpost, trying to let the anger of his own weakness fuel his words and emotions.

"I'm...I'm sorry...I...God...I thought...I really thought I was helping, that...I could make up for..." Dan could hear John swallow. "Danny...I..."

"Leave me alone," Dan whispered and pressed his face against the bedpost. He could feel the smooth edges digging into his forehead. "Just...let me do what I have to do. No protection. No making up for anything. Just...leave me alone. I can't keep pretending it's okay. I'm so tired. P-please." He sat there, hiding his face and waited. He could feel John standing there.

John wasn't saying a word.

Dan finally heard a whisper, too low to be understood before he heard the door open then shut.

And still he waited. And waited, even when he could no longer hear John's footsteps outside for the longest time. Sitting there, clutching the post like a life preserver, squeezing as if the wood would splinter and break, maybe pierce his heart and end it all right here and now, but that would be irresponsible of him, wouldn't it? But everything hurt so much. So much...

"Dan?"

He started until he realized the voice was softer, higher. Doctor Frasier. He didn't raise his head though, didn't respond.

"I saw your brother a few minutes ago. Thought I would check on you." A gentle touch on his shoulder made him lift his head finally, and she gasped. "What's wrong? Are you in pain?"

"Yes..." Dan could feel her leaning closer, and he panicked, her face as he saw it before, flashing in his mind. He cringed and felt her pull away. Dan took a deep breath. Dan couldn't stop the strangled moan from escaping his lips.

"Are you okay?" He could hear her snap open her bag. "Where does it hurt?"

"Just everywhere..." He shook as he could hear himself telling John.

"Everywhere...please..." He felt an arm around his shoulders. He couldn't stop shaking. He didn't know why. Why didn't the pain stop? He'd done the right thing. He really had. "I...I had to tell him...how could I say all those...God...just make it stop. Anything. Do anything! Just make it stop!" His heart was thumping so hard, he thought it would explode. He dropped his head and felt it being guided onto a shoulder. Don't think of what she looks like.

"Sh..." A hand stroked his head, even around the hated devices on his temples. "It'll be okay..."

No, it wouldn't be. He was alone, without his support, and that was how it should be for John's sake, but the irrepressible panic he felt the moment John left the room didn't stop. Nothing would ever be okay for him again. Dan closed his eyes and felt a prick of something in his arm. He let himself hear the words and felt a hot tear going down the curve of his cheek before sleep overcame him once more.

And for one selfish moment, he hoped he never woke up.

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When he came to, Jack found himself hanging from bound wrists, feet forced to stand on his toes. The wall underneath him trembled once and then stilled. And the humming which resonated all around him was gone, leaving him in the silent dark.

Wherever the ship was going, apparently, they had arrived. He wondered if Daniel—

Daniel!

Jerking his throbbing head up, O'Neill whipped his eyes around the darkness, frantically trying to find some sign his friend was here with him. But all his eyes could see was the soft glow of golden carved panels gleaming golden spotlights, the ground itself unseen.

He yanked at his arms, frustrated. The chains were on so tight, they didn't even rattle.

"It would appear your brother has awoken."

Jack froze, a cold shiver coursed down his back that wasn't due to the wall itself. He heard the soft comment, the leveled voice he was used to hearing, but this one was coupled with another voice, laced with menace and mild amusement, bordering on arrogance.

"Perhaps he would like to witness once more...since he could not before."

With a spark, lights flooded the chamber, and Jack squinted, the abrupt brightness bringing tears to his eyes. Cringing, head sideways, he didn't see who the person was talking to. Eyes blearily scanning the vast chamber, half hidden in shadows, he noted one door. One way in. One way out. He didn't see any weapons lying around, any guards, another possible exit.

But he saw her.

Seated on a throne of the same metal as the room itself, a woman with long brown hair laced with reddish thick braids wrapped with glittering beads, peered back at him with an amused expression on her heart shaped face.

"Doc?" O'Neill whispered, forgetting for a moment where he was. Janet Frasier stared back at him with a secretive smile on her lips. Her smile broadened, showing white teeth. "What?" He stopped, remembering, and his eyes narrowed.

Hathor.

The dual tone sounded smug at his confusion. "We are pleased to see you can join us once more. Our guards may have been too harsh in their treatment of you. We were concerned when you did not wake as promptly as expected."

"Your _concern_ touches me. Really," the colonel drawled as he glared at her.

The half smile wavered, and her eyes glowed a soft white. They faded back to the original color, and she stood up. Her velvety gown, blood red, edged with intricate metal wiring, tinkled as she padded across the room towards him. As the thick skirts parted, her bare feet, gems clasped over her ankles, peeked through. She barely made a sound except for the quiet jangle of her jewelry brushing against her hair and throat. The petite woman casually tossed her hair back, her finery chiming once more as she stopped a foot away from O'Neill.

Jack swallowed, but kept his angry stare at her, not veering away when he saw her eyes glow once more as she scanned him like a piece of meat. She arched an eyebrow at him, looking with an approving smile.

"Our pharaoh Ra will be pleased to personally witness your execution along with your brother's."

O'Neill kept his mouth shut. He didn't even flinch when he felt fingers braced with heavy sharp jewelry stroke down his cheek in an almost loving manner.

"Perhaps...we should honor you by bringing you to our side. You served Lord Seth very well. He was quite pleased with your servitude, to the point he had raised you to overseer for the mines. Perhaps you will serve us well also?" Hathor whispered as her lips parted. The familiar scent of nishta lingered over his nostrils. Jack choked as he felt the heavy scent seeping into him, tendrils wrapping around his senses and he felt—

Nothing.

_Ha!_ Jack thought triumphantly. _We've been whammied by you before! Once immune, it doesn't matter what reality we're in, we're okay!_ He schooled a dazed look on his face though, hoping maybe to fool her long enough to break free.

It didn't work.

Snarling, Hathor's eyes flashed again, and her hand whipped across his face. Jack's head slammed back from the blow. He spat, realizing he was tasting blood from both inside his mouth and from his cheek where her metal glove sliced across the bone.

"You are not affected by our nishta!" She sounded like she couldn't believe it. "How is this possible? Jermak promised us we would have our nishta back."

Jewelry chiming as she spun around on her heels, the Goa'uld queen stalked away to his right. She flung her hand towards a wall, and Jack caught sight of the ribbon device slipped into her palm. More lights flooded, brightening the spot she was heading for.

Curious, the colonel craned his neck and stiffened when he saw the crumpled figure draped over a pile of cushions, chains extended from outstretched limbs to the floor below.

"Daniel," he whispered, his chest clenching, heart filling with dread. He moistened his lips, nervously watching as Hathor/Frasier walked over to the archeologist and sat down beside him.

"And how is our favorite doing?" she purred, shooting a thin smile back at Jack, gloating. She ran her hands greedily over Daniel's outstretched arms. "We have missed you so much. So very much. Even we can not understand it ourselves." Her fingers traced the lines of his limbs. Jack could see Daniel frowning in his sleep, though not conscious, still bothered by the invasive exploration. "Eh? We do not recall giving you this." Hathor lifted his limp left arm, frowning at the thin wire wrapped around the wrist.

Jack froze. _Shit, shit, shit._ He tensed as she traced the ring with a finger, musing out loud.

"Perhaps someone has already claimed you for their own? This will not do." She tried pulling it off, but to Jack's immense relief, the circlet stayed on Daniel's wrist. "Hm." Hathor narrowed her eyes, looking at Jack. He stayed still, mentally thanking his luck, if he could call it that, his wrist was concealed behind the braces.

"No matter," Hathor purred once more. "We claim you. Our right overrules all. You shall belong to no one else."

Cupping Daniel's head and lifting him up to have a better look, she clucked at the sight of his hair, her hand brushing against the short strands with a mild frown. "What is this? We much preferred your locks from before. Have you tried to change yourself to conceal, Beloved?" The woman ran her hand through his hair once more, threading through the short strands. "But we can adjust to this appearance as well, Beloved."

Daniel murmured something, sounding dazed to Jack's ears. He could see Daniel frowning, trying to figure out the voice.

"We deeply regretted our decision to bear you as a gift to Ra," the Goa'uld went on as she leaned closer in the soft light. Her fingers stroked his face, wandering up to his temples, and Jack tensed. Abruptly, he could hear her suck in her breath. The woman dropped Daniel back down on the cushions, the man landing with a groan, and she stood up, backing away.

"Where are your _re'klya_?" she demanded of the unconscious man. When he didn't respond, the woman whipped around, her skirts flying as she headed back to Jack. Her eyes flashed as she neared him. "Tell me! Where are they?"

Jack looked away, saying nothing as he stared at the far end of the wall and the hieroglyphs decorating its surface.

A fist grabbed his hair and snapped his head back. The colonel grunted in surprise, his shoulders bunching as he tried to resist the hand pulling his head back further. He was beginning to find it hard to breathe as she kept yanking his head. The strength of the petite woman surprised him although it shouldn't since the monster living inside her aided her grip.

"Tell me!" Hathor screeched. Her fist bunched tighter, and Jack could have sworn she ripped hair off his scalp. "Who took them off? Was it Ra? Did you promise him something? How did your brother get hold of a sarco—?"

"Ja..."

O'Neill and the queen froze at the confused slur. Both turning, they saw Daniel lifting his head up, trying to find the source of the commotion. Jack stiffened when he heard the young archeologist cough weakly before trying to call out again.

"Ja…"

"I'm over here, Dan." The colonel cringed inwardly at the name. The inside of his mouth tasted bitter. He could see Jackson frowning, confused, temporarily forgetting the arrangement they had agreed on. Then he closed his eyes. O'Neill could see him gathering his thoughts. Daniel took a deep breath, mouthing "John" as if to remind himself.

_Attaboy, Daniel. Don't tell them anything. Don't drop the ball. _

"Where?" Daniel whispered, tongue running over his lip. He fidgeted on top of the pile of cushions, alarmed when he felt the weight of the irons on his wrists and ankles.

"It is good to see you again, our Beloved."

Jack could see his friend tensing from where he was. He struggled with the bonds as Hathor padded across the room back to Daniel.

Head whipping up at her voice, eyes wide as circles, Daniel stilled when he saw her coming towards him. "Janet?" he started before focusing on her royal garb, the ruby red gem nestled in the palm of her wire mesh glove. Swallowing, he tried to sit up and shuffle away from her when his bonds stopped him. Daniel looked down at his chains, frustrated.

"Did you miss us?" she purred, dropping down to her knees on the pillows.

"Not really," Daniel muttered, refusing to meet her eyes.

The Goa'uld crept up to him, back arched like a large cat as she approached the retreating young scientist. Unable to stop himself, Daniel lifted his head and saw the hungry look in familiar eyes. There was something wrong with the scene. The face was different. But it was the same nightmare, hearing her arrogant voice.

"Don't touch him!" Jack's voice boomed across the entire chamber so suddenly, Daniel started, his chains rattling in sync with his bones, but Hathor ignored O'Neill's warning tone and came closer with a sneer on her lips.

Daniel didn't look towards Jack's direction, his eyes glued to the smirking face of Janet Frasier, hoping to see some sort of underlying regret, fear, anything that would have told him the host was fighting inside.

Nothing.

No. He refused to believe his friend Janet Frasier, even in an alternate universe, was not fighting this demon. No. Something of the host must survive. Something.

"Janet," he tried in a soft voice, trying not to flinch when he felt her hand drift up his chest in casual circles, her other hand stroking his thigh. He swallowed, feeling the ribbon device's hard metal sheathing on her fingers scraping his pants leg, threatening to score red scratches on his leg underneath. He ignored the advances, shifting uncomfortably, wishing he could get away. Keeping his eyes on her face instead, the coy look on her features utterly strange to behold, he strengthened his voice and tried once more. "I know you're in there. This isn't you. You're a doctor. You're Janet Frasier—"

A hand whipped out and backhanded him across the cheek. Stunned, he fell back over the cushions. He found himself staring at the end of the chamber upside down as he dangled on top of the pile of cushions.

"Son of a—" Chains could be heard rattling loudly. "Don't touch him!"

"How do you know my host's name?" Hathor shouted, her eyes burning white hot. She hovered over Daniel, her knee planted firmly on his chest, and she grabbed him by the collar, lifting him up once more. Shaking him, she screamed at his face. "No one dares to call us by our host's name! She no longer exists! We are Hathor now!" Her hands tightened, and the collar shrank in her fists, making it a noose around his throat.

Sputtering, Daniel tried to pull them off, but his hands couldn't reach far enough to do so. He could faintly hear the colonel from afar, cursing, yelling, trying to divert Hathor's attention away from him. He couldn't breathe. Daniel began to feel his world fade as a shadow came closer and closer, eclipsing the chamber's light, Jack's yelling rising to a small roar.

She kissed him.

_No!_ Daniel could feel her tongue nimbly forcing his mouth apart, her body pressing closer to him, and he arched his back, trying to buck her off. Her hands moved away from his shirt, now drifting to his bound arms, fingers caressing his forearms lovingly as her mouth greedily covered his.

"Get off him!"

_No! This couldn't be happening again. No!_

_"You…" he stuttered."Want me to make more…Goa'ulds?"_

_Hathor merely smiled and came closer._

_Daniel's arm shot up, trying to pull away, push her away from him while the small voice of reason was still audible. Hathor did not look happy, and she scowled. Jerking him closer, opening her mouth further, a sweet scent wafted up his mouth, his nose._

_The little voice retreated deeper, the small part who knew why this was bad, very bad, only able to watch as he was led to the bed._

No! He wasn't going to let this happen again!

Daniel jerked his head free, gasping out for air before he felt another slap that sent his head lolling back into the plush cushions. But he didn't let that slow him down. He refused to lie here and let her do this to him! Kicking, twisting as far as the chains would let him, Daniel struggled to buck her off. He could still hear Jack hollering in the background, and it spurred him on, straining against metal clasps even if it felt like his wrists would tear against its sharp edges.

Hathor only laughed. At the sound, Daniel stilled.

"Perhaps a parting gift from us before you are returned to our pharaoh. He would be grateful for your return and reward us quite generously," the Goa'uld queen mused as she sat up, the game no longer interesting her. Her smile deepened, eyes narrowing as she studied him hungrily. "Consider it our gratitude for your role in our rise to power once more."

The archeologist glared back at her, keeping silent.

She chuckled. "Such spirit. We had thought it bothersome before, but now we see it can be quite alluring in you." Hathor shook her head side to side, long hair falling to her eyes and for a moment, looked like Janet Fraiser again. But then her sly smile grew, and the illusion was gone. "Perhaps we should send your brother alone and spare you."

"No thanks," Daniel retorted.

Hathor tilted her head, long hair concealing the smoky eyes as she scanned him up and down. "We can still offer you great rewards, Beloved. Jermak thinks he will soon rule this Tau'ri planet with us, but I can raise you to pharaoh in his place." She lowered herself until she was hovering over him. "We would still desire a worthy pharaoh in replacement of Ra. Jermak does not always please us."

Daniel glared at her. "What if Jermak found out about your plans? I doubt he would be too happy about sharing the throne."

He steeled himself when he saw her raise her hand once more. His hands bunched to fists. If only he could get out of these bonds!

"No." Hathor lowered her hand. Smiling slyly down at him, she fingered a small necklace hanging from her neck, the glint of a key sparkling like a jewel, the head of the key carved with the eye of Horus.

Breath caught, Daniel tried not to look at it as he realized it was for his chains.

"We prefer you unharmed for this," she lowered herself again, her knee digging into his chest painfully. Daniel pretended to be dazed from her last blow and only mumbled a protest as her hands swept up his sides, around his shoulders, her mouth drawing closer to his lips. Closer and closer she descended on him, Jack's screaming dutifully ignored. Daniel could see her eyes, narrowed to slits like a preying feline, her red lips puckered as she came over him. He murmured in dismay, as if unable to escape.

And butted his head hard on her face.

_Crack._

He thought he heard something, felt something fall on top of him, but the ringing in his head made everything a haze. Blinking countless times, he tried to get the room in focus and finally heard Jack calling to him.

Hoarse from the shouting, Jack croaked out, "You okay?"

"...Think so," Daniel returned in a faint voice. He shuffled restlessly, wondering why he felt so heavy.

"Watch it, she's on top of your legs." Jack's voice laced with concern sailed out to him. "Can you see her?"

Lifting his head up, Daniel saw the top of her head on his abdomen, her body still draped over him. He swallowed. "Um...yes." He experimented raising his knees, and she rolled down to the ground parallel to him.

Jack hung there, heart still running a race without him. The colonel was half tempted to demand Daniel hurry up and get him out of the chains so he could wring her miserable neck personally. He watched as Daniel rolled her off him, an understandable reaction considering, and he mulled over how he was going to get out of the chains.

"Hey, you find keys on her anywhere?" he asked doubtfully as he tested the chains once more. He felt the anchors holding them jiggle, but he doubted he could break free of them in time. He rotated his caught wrists, about to try and slip free of the bonds even if he had to break his thumb to make room, when he saw Daniel's leg moving over Hathor.

"What are you doing?" O'Neill exclaimed as he saw the archeologist toe the Goa'uld on the chest.

Daniel grunted, face scrunched up in concentration. "Trying..." He tilted his head, exposing a tense neck as he stretched his leg as far as he could with the chains on. "T-to...damn...get...get...oops..." He flushed when his foot accidentally kicked Hathor on the chin, and her head rolled back, exposing her long white neck.

"What?" The colonel couldn't tell what his friend was doing, wondering how the guy could blush at a time like this.

"Um...key...Saw a...missed...a key...think it's...for my...argh...chains," Daniel mumbled as he felt the necklace move under his foot. Bending his leg awkwardly back, he stepped on the key, brushing against her shoulders and moved it until his bound hand could catch the key. "Got it!"

"What? What?" Jack's voice was frantic, unable to see from where he was.

"I got the key..." Daniel gnashed his teeth as he stretched his hand, trying to bend his wrist to the circling link, to the keyhole he'd spied when he first woke up. There was no other keyhole in his other hand.

"I'm free!" he announced as the chains from both sides of his arms fell apart. Massaging his reddened wrists, he sat up and stretched out to undo the irons around his ankle. Daniel stumbled away from the pile of cushions as fast as he could, a look of disgust on his face as he stood up in front of it. He promptly turned, facing Jack instead.

Jack grinned. "Great going, Daniel. Now if you'll just—now what are you doing?"

Daniel was rolling Hathor on top of the pillows. Deftly locking her wrists in the chains, Daniel slipped the ribbon device off her hands and tossed it as far away as he could with a grimace. He stepped away from her, glancing over his shoulder with a question.

Jack nodded. "That should do it for now."

Smiling, Daniel nodded as well. "Good. Let's get out of here."

O'Neill rolled his eyes. "Sure, Danny boy. Um...not to be demanding, but would you mind?" He shook his arms to point out the connecting chains.

Daniel gave a little jump. "Oops! Sorry." He stumbled over, key in hand as he apologized.

Face pale, steps uneven, he reached Jack and paused before his friend. Jack frowned, not liking how the young man was gasping as if out of breath and knew it was probably all finally catching up with him.

Schooling a calm look on his face, Daniel gave a weak smile which Jack returned before he fumbled around with the key. With a clink, the chains broke free from his limbs.

"Yes!" Jack crowed, massaging his wrists with a rueful frown. He scanned Daniel carefully, noting the smudged lipstick on his face, the bruises mottling his jaw. "You okay?"

"No," Daniel wiped his mouth with a grimace. He turned back towards Hathor. He couldn't stop himself from shuddering. He turned back to Jack, eyes weary.

"Can we go home now?" Daniel weakly joked, knowing full well they couldn't.

"We could still catch the playoffs if we hurry," Jack quipped, one hand clasping his shoulder.

Daniel chuckled weakly. He opened his mouth when he heard the Goa'uld beginning to stir.

"Filthy humans! Unhand me!" she shrieked, the chains rattling in her fury.

"So much for being her favorite," Daniel muttered, steering clear of her.

O'Neill agreed. "I doubt she'll be sending us any Christmas cards either." He eyed the heavy metal door with a frown. "Think you can find our way out of this ship and to a Stargate?"

"I would rather try than stick around here," Daniel slipped around Jack, trying not to look at her as he went for the door. He grunted as he gave it a push and watched the door give way. He stuck his head out for a moment. "No one's around. We could—"

"Daniel!"

Spinning around, Daniel froze when he saw what looked like four birds of prey emerging from a hidden panel on the opposite end, heading straight for Jack like vultures. Hathor screamed in her language for her guards to release her.

"Get out of here!" Jack bellowed as he slammed a double fist on one guard's exposed midriff, snatching the zat weapon as the Jaffa folded. He fired off a shot at another and ran towards Daniel.

Daniel swung out the door wider, slipping out to check the hallways when he heard Jack screaming at him to leave. Daniel stuck his head back in to tell him to hurry when he saw O'Neill twisted around, firing another shot but missing. "Go! I'm right be—" Jack lurched to a halt as a jolt from one of the guards surrounded him like electrical snakes. The colonel folded in a dazed heap a few feet from Hathor's feet, quickly surrounded by the guards with their dark red gem eyes glowing angrily down at him.

Daniel stood there by the door, eyes wide.

"Go," Jack mouthed as he fumbled up to his knees only to slam back down on the floor again when the guards reached him and gave a swift kick to his sides. Another guard cursed, aiming his zat at the colonel.

_"Perhaps we should send your brother alone and spare you."_

He couldn't leave him here. Dan O'Neill's weak voice, blank eyes superimposed over Jack.

"Stop!" Daniel flung out his hands.

Flanked by guards, Daniel felt his arms wrenched back, and he grimaced. He felt himself half dragged back to where Jack was, Hathor now freed, standing over him with a furious look on her face.

"You dare!" she seethed as she stalked over to Daniel.

"I guess sorry wouldn't help, huh?" Daniel muttered, receiving a slap across his face. His head jerked to the side.

Hathor's eyes narrowed, looking him up and down. Daniel felt her fingers drifting over his temples, and he tensed.

"No scar," the queen murmured. She looked down at Jack, who was glaring back at her with equal intensity. "You look different somehow..." The woman studied the colonel, then back to Daniel.

_No, no, no. We look the same. We look the same_, Daniel repeated to himself, trying to school a defiant expression as she stroked his face again. Please don't let her make the connection!

"Leave my brother alone!" Jack hollered. Daniel nearly sagged in relief when he saw the doubt in her eyes ebb. "I said leave him alone!"

"You could have been lifted to great power," she whispered over Daniel's ear. "We would have given you an eternity as our new god." The young man kept silent, biting his lower lip when he felt her tongue lick him behind the ear. "We would have given you..." she gave the spot another small lick, "great pleasure had you not resisted and denied us."

Gulping the lump threatening to explode out of Daniel's throat and spill his stomach's contents on the floor, he looked straight ahead. He cried out, though, when she bit his ear, drawing blood.

"Damn you!" Jack rose to his feet before slamming down again when the Jaffa kicked him behind the knees. The colonel swore, kicking out, trying to reach Hathor as her guards dragged him away from Daniel.

The young man watched with dread as Jack was pulled further and further away. "Where are you taking him?"

Laughing, Hathor ran a hand up Daniel's chest. "Nowhere. We merely offer you a choice," she purred.

"C-choice?" Daniel hated how his voice quavered as he saw Jack brought up into a standing position, framed by two burly guards. The colonel glowered at Hathor.

"You can still remain. We need not two to draw Ra out. You can remain and stay by our side," the Goa'uld cooed as she stroked the curve of his neck, pausing by the shoulder. "Or," she hissed abruptly, her hand becoming claws, and she squeezed.

Daniel flinched and tried to twist away, but the two guards on his side just shoved him back on the pile of pillows, flat on his back.

"What are you doing?" Jack yelled as he saw the Jaffa yank back Daniel's arms, the irons clasping over bruised wrists once more.

Jack gazed back at Daniel, mentally telling him to hold on, to beat this. He promised him they wouldn't be here too long. Daniel just had to hold on for a bit longer. Jack would find a way out of this. He would.

"We ask you..." Hathor kneeled down by Daniel, blocking Jack's view. "Remain and be our pharaoh or..." She spilled the contents out from the pouch into her palm.

"Oh God..." Daniel whispered.

Jack struggled against the guards' hold, trying to see. All he could do was listen to the fast breathing of his friend as she laughed, showing whatever it was in her hands. Jack saw Janet Frasier's face crinkle in anticipation, making his stomach churn at the surreal sight.

"Yes...or no?" Hathor purred, her hand against Daniel's cheek.

Jack could hear Daniel swallow audibly.

"Well?" the queen cooed, her hand drifting to the archeologist's thigh, and she squeezed.

"No."

The chamber went silent. Even the guards' breathing seemed to still, and Daniel's whisper echoed out like a shout.

"Surely you do not wish to..." Hathor hissed, but she saw something in his eyes and sighed dramatically. "Pity. Very well, then." She stood up and Jack saw something in her hand. At first, the silver discs were unfamiliar to him until he saw them glint against her palm, the small nickel siz_ed circles now drawing a name._

_Mind probes. The_ re'klya.

"No!" Jack lunged forward, only to be yanked back by the guards. He twisted, straining against their hold as he saw Hathor motion her guards to hold Daniel. The archeologist stared at Jack, his lower lip bitten so hard it was white as he tried not to look at Hathor's face. His eyes drifted up to her hands and a muffled sound escaped his lips as he saw the probes in her fingers coming closer. Instinctively, he drew back even though there was nowhere to go.

"No! Don't!" Jack screamed as he kicked out desperately. "Not him! You could take me! Come on!" The guards laughed, pulling him back, kicking his legs from behind to make him drop to the ground before yanking him back up again.

Wide eyes glued on O'Neill. Daniel looked like he was telling him to be quiet. But Jack couldn't. He couldn't! He wasn't going to allow this!

"No! You can't!"

Hathor appeared to enjoy the shouting, her mouth curling with a cruel twist as she watched Daniel, flat on his back, eyes glued to what she held.

"We pray you regret your answer..." she hissed as she pressed one disk on Daniel's temple and laughed when she heard a snap. Immediately, the first piece lit up before it faded back to a dull silver surface. The young man shut his eyes tight, his breathing quickening.

"Stop it! Take them off! Take them off! You bitch! You—"

"Silence him!" she commanded. "We grow tired of his protests!"

One guard swung hard with his zat, using it like a club, and Jack sagged between them, dazed.

"Where were we?" Hathor smiled down at the young man who was clenching his jaw, waiting for the next one. "Ah yes! The last piece and then...your brother's turn."

Daniel's eyes flew open as Jack jerked. "No!"

Hathor chuckled as she sat on his chest, enjoying how he twisted under her. "Know this...I will present a set to our pharaoh Ra."

"No! You can't! You said—"

"Leave him alone!" Jack hoarsely said, unable to tear his eyes away from the one thing he had hoped to God he would never see.

"You never should have said no, Beloved," Hathor whispered as she slipped the last disk on the other side.

"Daniel..." O'Neill whispered as he saw the young man still, a soft hum rising above them as Hathor retrieved her ribbon device from her guards and hovered the gem over Daniel.

"J..." Daniel managed before the hum grew, and his face contorted with pain, red with agony.

"Stop it!" Jack yanked one arm free and lunged for Hathor's arm before he felt a blow to his back. Crashing to the floor, Jack hoarsely called out for them to stop as darkness enveloped him.

Daniel screamed.

_Oh God, no_, Jack thought as he faded, the last thing he heard ringing in his ears was Daniel's agonizing scream as the devices activated. _Ah Christ, Daniel. I'm so sorry..._


	18. Chapter 17

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

_"Daniel, run!" Carter was screaming, motioning wildly at Jackson who was trapped behind a heap of dead bodies, pinned by staff weapon fire._

_Staring, John's breath was heaving in his lungs, unable to believe they could just stand by and watch this happen. "Why are we still standing here? Let's go!"_

_Ferretti snarled out, "Colonel wants us to stay back!"_

_"You're crazy!" John took a step forward._

_Carter was still in front of the wall, staring pleadingly at Daniel. "We can't! Otherwise—"_

_"To hell with that! They're trapped there!" John lurched forward, about to leap when he felt burly arms wrap around him throwing him to the ground. "No! We can't leave them there! I can save him! I can save him!"_

"Captain O'Neill?"

John spun around, fists in the air before Louis Ferretti's face focused. He lowered his hands after a brief moment.

Standing there, gaping at the defensive stance John was taking in the middle of the hallway, Ferretti was speechless. When he found the captain staring blankly at Jackson's office, he wondered if he should get Doctor Frasier.

"Ferretti," John just said and stuck his hands in his pockets, striking a very tired posture, oddly echoing Doctor Jackson on the chance occasion he found the archeologist in the lounge too tired to go home yet too bothered to nap here.

"Ah, I was heading over here to pick up Doctor Jackson's notes for one of our archeologists. Major Carter's still working on the video and the readouts. Damn meter got all busted when Teal'c stood in the middle of the portal thing so that might take a while. The lab boys are going to try translating the tablet with the notes Jackson got so far."

"Oh." John stared dully at Ferretti's back as the other soldier opened the office door. He didn't know why, but he found himself following Ferretti inside. He looked around the cluttered place, the discarded coffee cups and the pile of books, sheaves of paper sticking out from its pages.

"Damn," Ferretti muttered, running a hand through his short blond hair. He snorted as he glared at the mess. "I forgot Doctor Jackson doesn't file his stuff away. Now I know they're here somewhere. Man, maybe I should ask the major and see if she knows where he might have…"

"Is there a legal pad anywhere?" John interrupted, getting an idea. "One with maybe a few paperclips and post-it notes on it?"

"Huh?"

Waving a hand towards the pile, John didn't elaborate. "Paperclips and post-it notes on a ledger."

Ferretti shrugged and rummaged through the stuff, wincing as a lone book from a pile on Jackson's desk tumbled. John swiftly caught it before it could impact and crush its fragile spine. The captain pursed his lips as Ferretti ducked his head, suddenly fascinated with looking for the notebook.

"Are you supposed to be looking through his stuff like that?" John asked dubiously before finally stepping in to help. He was almost glad for the distraction. It was something to do. He needed to be doing something, to stop thinking for a while.

"We need to do something here," Ferretti muttered. "None of us are enjoying sitting on our hands very much. There's only so much you can do gawking at that damn mirror and nothing else."

John silently agreed. He stared at the desk, the cluttered scraps of paper and pen. It seemed like he was always picking Dan's stuff up, then Dan himself until his brother didn't want his help any more.

"Now I know why Colonel O'Neill complains about the mess," the major griped but not really sounding mad. He didn't see John staring sadly at the clutter. "Place is a disaster area."

"I've seen worse," John muttered, staring at the neat little towers of reference books on the table, the lines of shelves in the back. While not the neatest place he had ever seen, John did note everything appeared to have its place.

Ferretti grumbled as he gingerly lifted a statue from the tabletop. He peered at the pile of notes that was under it. "How the hell does Doctor Jackson find anything?"

"I'm sure he has his ways," John murmured, his eyes clouding in thought.

_"Damn it," Dan ducked his head under the cherry wood desk, ignoring John's knock on his office door. _

_Standing there, he wondered what had happened to Rothman with his nasal spray and eyedrops. John cleared his throat._

_"You know, Doctor O'Neill," John half growled. "My first real break. I could be home playing newlyweds with my beautiful wife. But nooo!_ _You said, 'Let's do lunch. Swing on by, dude!' and I agreed." Tapping his foot, eyeing his own footwear and suddenly realizing out of habit, he'd put on his military issued boots again, John groused as he found himself still being ignored. "What the hell are you looking for this time?"_

_Dan only grunted at John's complaint, shoved a hand above the desk line and waved towards his general direction. "Give me a second. Go sit somewhere."_

_John crossed his arms and eyed the flying objects appearing from behind the desk. Now he knew where Dan's assistant went. Probably ran screaming for the hills after seeing the disaster area here. The only things clean were the walls where the diplomas and a few family pictures he remembered taking were hung. He shifted in place, wondering if maybe he should just sit on the floor with the crates and vases peeking out of packing. _

_"Sit where?"_

_Dan sounded irritated as he continued his search, paper and folders flying past the desk to the floor as he went through the file boxes he had behind the desk. "I don't know! There. Here. Just sit!"_

_"Arf, arf," John quipped as he went over to the chair Dan motioned towards. He eyed the pair of very sharp scissors and a legal pad clipped with paperclips and post-it notes on the chair. He raised his eyebrow, even though Dan couldn't see it. "You want me to sit here?" He eyed the scissors once more and winced._

_"Look, I'm a little busy right now."_

_"So what else is new?"_

_Another annoyed looking blue eye blinked at him above the desk before disappearing once more. "I had prepared a lecture for Rothman, and now I can't find the freaking..." Dan swore as another item was discovered not to be it, and he tossed it over the desk in disgust. The wad of paper rolled until it hit John's boots._

_Picking it up, John straightened the mangled sheet of paper. His eyebrow arched up as he saw the dainty handwriting he knew was definitely not his younger brother's. "Sarah. Hm...Who's Sarah? Phone number 390..."_

_Dan yelped, straightening, only to slam the top of his head on the bottom of his desk. John winced sympathetically. That sounded like it hurt._

_"Ow! God damn...give me that!" Dan got up in a hurry._

_John grinned at the long bangs sticking out at all angles. "I thought you were looking for lecture notes."_

_"I need that too!"_

_"Oh?" John drawled. He gave the paper a closer look, darting away smoothly from Dan's lunge. Whistling, he turned the paper every which way as if studying it. "Hm...Very interesting, Mutt."_

_"Give me that!"_

_"Isn't she from the labs down in Archeology?" John chuckled as he raised the paper higher from Dan's grasp. _

_"Yes and give that back! I have no time for this! I've got to find my not—" Dan's voice drifted off when John silently pointed to a legal pad on the chair, plastered with yellow sticky paper, pinned with colorful clips._

_John couldn't help but chuckle. "Didn't you tell me once you put your notations on those sticky things and clip them so you know which notebook was recent?"_

_Dan shot him a smothering glare. He picked up the legal pad, eyes darting left and right as he scanned its contents. His shoulders slumped, relaxing as he realized it was the lecture notes._

_"I believe you owe me lunch," John said smugly. He turned around and walked out of the door. If he didn't, Dan would dally, and it would be another lunch the young man forgot to eat._

_"All right, all right." John could hear Dan rummaging around for his jacket, the leather one John gave him for Christmas last year. He heard the zipper purr as Dan frantically gathered his keys, his notes and wallet. John eyed the crumpled paper in his hand and felt his grin grow wider._

_"Hurry up, Doc!" John hollered as he stuffed the paper in his slacks. Sarah from Archeology, huh? He grinned more broadly. Maybe he should swing by tomorrow for lunch again and take a long stroll by Archeology first._

_"Coming! Coming!"_

_"And you owe me lunch!"_

_"All right!"_

_"None of that crappy cheeseburger stuff either! I want steak!" John stuck his head back through the door. Dan was standing there, looking very hexed. "What the hell is the matter with you now?"_

_"I could have sworn I had my wallet..." Dan trailed off._

_John rolled his eyes. "Damn, you're lucky your head is attached to your neck. You would forget it every morning when you got up and left."_

_"I'm not that forgetful."_

_"No, just messy. Now hurry it up and get your wallet already! You're paying since I found your stuff." John narrowed his eyes. "You'd better not be trying to back out of this."_

_"No, I really can't find it. It was right here. I...oh, there it is!" Dan spied his wallet under a textbook. He stuffed the billfold in the back pocket of his khakis and grinned triumphantly. _

_"Thrilled. Let's go." John started walking, hearing Dan swearing softly as he tried to catch up._

_"Hold up! Man, it's like you never had food before...wait a minute..."_

_John grinned, patting the paper in his pocket. He whistled as he hurried down the hall, waggling eyebrows at some giggling assistant who poked out her head to see what the commotion was about._

_"John!"_

_John quickened his pace. He tossed a casual "Yes?" over his shoulder._

_"You don't happen to have something of mine, do you?" Dan jogged up to John, trying to catch up. But John kept walking faster, leaving him behind._

_"Nope," John said cheerfully._

_"Great. That's weird. I could have...John!"_

_Yep, he remembered._

_"Maybe you should have post-it-noted Sarah's number, too!" John quipped before breaking into a run. Laughing, he heard Dan following._

_"Come back here! I swear..."_

_John dodged a few students as he bounded down the front steps. He was going to miss this when he went to Iraq. But the training mission there was quick. Shouldn't be more than a month, Colonel Cromwell said, and he'd be back pestering his younger brother once more._

_"John!"_

_John chuckled. He wouldn't have it any other way._

"Found it!"

Jerking, John nearly bumped into Ferretti, startled out of his thoughts once again. He saw the other soldier waving a legal pad, riddled with post-it notes and paperclips.

"Some things never change," John murmured sadly.

Ferretti eyed the captain curiously.

"Ah, my brother does the exact same thing."

"Oh." Ferretti thought about this piece of news for a minute before he shrugged. "Heck, I don't pretend to know about this alternate shindig, but our worlds can't be that much different from each other."

"Aside from the fact my world is half dead?" John snarled.

Ferretti froze.

John shook his head. "Look, I'm...ah hell...I'm sorry. Okay?" He sat down on a chair nearby.

"We've got a gym here."

"Huh?" John raised his head.

"We've got a gym here. You know. You could go there and punch a few things." Ferretti shrugged once more. "We've swung by once or twice. Hell, I've seen the colonel go in there for a few rounds."

"I don't have time to be loitering around playing jump rope." John got up again as if it had occurred to him Daniel probably sat on that chair. He hated how cool to the touch the surface was as if the occupant hadn't been here in a while.

"Well, we can't go back either," the other soldier pointed out. "All my team's been doing on our shift is staring at their ugly mugs on the wall. We still don't know how it works. Won't do us any good." He nodded towards the door. "It's two levels down. I'll let someone know you're going to be there."

"I don't think..."

Ferretti looked John right in the eye. "Are we friends? In your world?"

John frowned, puzzled at the question. "Yeah. Pretty good, in fact. You and my brother are friends as well. When I first introduced you to him during that barbecue a few years ago before Ra..." His voice trailed off, and his mouth twitched in sadness. "You two goof balls damn near burned down my backyard trying to cook."

Blinking, Ferretti looked surprised at that piece of news. "Barbecue, huh? Beats throwing his books down some sand dune, I guess."

"What?"

"Never mind. Look, if we're...friends back there, trust me on this, then. Gawking and sitting around is not going to do you squat. Go. Hit a few things. Let Major Carter do her thing. Wait for her to pull a miracle out of her pretty head as she usually does, and then we'll get some action going." Ferretti grinned as he straightened, heading for the door.

John stared at the lean man in front of him. "You never said that much in my reality, Ferretti."

The soldier winked as he tucked the pad under his arm. "You know me, Captain O'Neill. I'm usually just here for the comic relief." With that, he gave a salute and left.

Looking around the room, at the notes and books neatly stacked on the table, John half expected Dan to be walking in grumbling about something he'd lost again.

And this wasn't Dan's office.

It was Daniel's.

And he wouldn't be walking in here any time soon.

John turned abruptly away from the sight of the office. Remembering what Ferretti had said, John headed for the direction the soldier had pointed in, stopping in front of the elevator. The doors opened, and a soldier was already inside.

Maybe a good workout, pretending the punching bag was Ra and every bastard who'd come and ruined what good he had left in his life, every monster who'd come and took his family away from him would help.

"Up or down, sir?" the soldier asked politely.

But he had a feeling the face he might see the most would be his own.

John stared at the numbers above this level where he knew Dan was. He was half tempted to go up instead. To check on him. Make sure he was okay. He knew how nervous Dan could get if he woke up and in the first second of sight before the devices kicked back in, he saw an unfamiliar face.

_"None of this would have happened if you hadn't left us there!" _

"Sir? Up or down?"

"Down," John said hoarsely and felt the elevator lurch before it descended further, away from where he knew his brother was, levels above him.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Curled up, lying on his side, the cushions pressing against his cheek, Daniel felt like he was being crushed. A pressure sitting on top of his chest, pressing down, making it hard to breathe.

Oddly enough, there was nothing on top of him though.

Below him, however, were the plush cushions he'd seen before. Not that he could see them now. Everything was dark.

Hot needles stabbed everywhere along his body, and he tightened into a small ball to stave the pain, head drooping down to his arms as he shuddered. The initial flare of pain, the agony that seemed like it went on forever, had retreated back to a sharp, defined prick on both sides of his temples where the devices were.

A hand stroked his hair, and he stilled, resisting the shaking of his body.

"You never should have said no," a soft voice whispered in Goa'uld, sharp nails scraping along the side of his exposed throat. "We would have embraced you as our mate, and you would have held a favored position among gods."

Daniel said nothing, not that he could anyway. It took everything to just breathe. In and out. In and out.

Another soft stroke against his throat, then drifting to his arms that were wrapped loosely around his own body. Daniel could feel her hot breath tracing the contours of his arm, and he waited for Jack to shout and protest angrily as he did before.

Nothing.

Jack? Daniel couldn't hear the colonel anywhere in the room. The last thing he saw, was Jack's stark white face, eyes glued to him as Hathor drew closer and closer with the damned _re'klya_. Dazed, O'Neill lifted his head with great difficulty, dark eyes giving him a silent promise before being dropped to the floor by another blow.

Daniel wanted to keep his eyes on Jack and take the promise that everything would turn out okay. The last thing he saw instead was Janet Frasier's face, Hathor of this reality, looming over him with her glowing eyes and arrogant smirk. Her face tattooed itself into his mind as he felt the tiny pricks of the devices being pressed into his face.

Hathor had drawn her ribbon device over him, the gem glowing, heat fluttering over his face like a hot breeze. It was like a flashback, this time Sha're standing over him with her ribbon device, ripples of pain coursing out of her palm and into his body. It felt the same, the pain, as Hathor waved her hand device over him, and he told himself it'd be okay. Just ride it through and he'd be fine. Then the real pain began.

He couldn't begin to bite down on his lip to not give her the satisfaction of hearing him scream. The pain came so abruptly, so swiftly, it was pure instinct for him to open his mouth and let the excruciating agony escape his throat before it could explode inside him and rip his insides with the torture.

He didn't know when he stopped screaming. Everything just shut down.

And now suddenly, he found himself in the dark, no longer chained, the light in the chamber warming his backside through a sweat soaked T-shirt, and her hands boldly running over his body like a child with a new toy.

Daniel couldn't move. He could barely breathe, and the temptation to scream and release the agony building inside his chest was too great. So he lay there on his side, feigning unconsciousness, hoping his disinterest would bore her and the too intimate touches would stop.

"My queen, you are pleased?" a deep voice boomed out into the chamber in ancient Egyptian. Lightly accented, vaguely Greek in Daniel's ears, the voice held the same duality as every other Goa'uld he'd encountered. Firm steps, long steps from a tall man, came forward, stopping by Daniel's head. He could feel the scrutiny of the newcomer, and he hoped the Goa'uld didn't suspect he was awake.

"Quite," Hathor responded in a breathless voice, yet still sounding too much like Janet to Daniel's liking. "You most certainly will reap the rewards for their recapture, General Jermak."

"Ra was very pleased with the news his _re'klya _and the traitor were returned." The deep voice chuckled as if this amused him, rather than delighting him. Daniel thought it odd. The general laughed louder. Then, abruptly, it stopped.

"He is unaware of us?" Jermak asked. Daniel held his breath as he felt a larger hand on his back. It retreated, and the archeologist was worried the Goa'uld might discover his deception.

Suddenly, a hard tip of a boot rammed into his side. Daniel was thankful his head was slumped over. It hid the act of him biting his lip to choke back the cry, his mouth trembling into the plush cushions below him.

Another poke of the boot came, only touching him at the ribs, although it felt like a poker stabbing him through his side, and then it was gone. Daniel tried to stay still, very still and hoped it didn't draw attention to him. He had already learned at a very young age that if one were very quiet, sometimes the bad people would forget you were even there.

_"Whur is he?" Something crashed to the floor, and Daniel jerked awake. Rubbing his eyes, he heard his foster father bump into another piece of furniture in the kitchen and swore. Daniel cringed. The man was sounding angrier by the minute. _

_"Be quiet!" Lily hissed, her voice clearer, more coherent now. "Last thing I need is for him to go meet that government woman tomorrow with circles under his eyes!"_

_Stumbling, the man's silhouette blocked the entrance to the living room. Daniel stayed very still and held his breath._

_"Yur awake?" his foster father snarled, hiccupping before he ventured closer. He poked Daniel on the blanket covered shoulder._

_Be still. Be quiet, Daniel kept telling himself, wishing it was like before when he hid in the office and his father would try and find him. He didn't want to be found this time. Not by this man. Daniel kept very still._

_"Hay...ah said..." Sour breath came over his face, and Daniel resisted the reaction to wrinkle his nose at the smell._

_"He's asleep, I said!" Lily was next to Daniel too. He heard a scuffle, and the two voices sounded farther away. "Now you keep out of his hair otherwise I'm gonna have a hard time convincing that woman to let him stay!"_

_Daniel didn't hear the rest, the arguing too far away now to pose a threat. But he lay there, curled within the blanket, telling himself over and over again._

_Be still. Be quiet. And they can't hurt you._

"He could not last long in the pain," Hathor said in a smug voice, and Daniel found himself back in the present. He held very still, straining to hear every word, but his mind was spinning, making everything hard to grasp, harder to translate the words when it had been so easy for him before.

_Concentrate. Pay attention. Focus on the words, not on what's happening to you right now._

The male voice grunted. "_Re'klya_ comes and goes as it pleases."

It would explain why one minute Daniel could concentrate on what they were saying, the next, just trying to breathe.

Hathor brushed her hand against his cheek. He resisted the reflex to cringe. He could do this. God, everything she touched hurt. But he could do this.

"Is this the traitor?" Jermak sounded far away. A soft thud, indicating something striking flesh, and Daniel heard a grunt.

Jack.

The Goa'uld queen continued with her petting, making Daniel sick to his stomach. "Perhaps we should make a set. You can have him while I have this one."

_No, no, no._

Jermak sounded like he was considering it before his voice grew firmer. "Perhaps after Ra is dead."

Ra? Dead?

"You contacted our pharaoh? What was his response?" Hathor said it with such a drawl, meanness dripping from every syllable.

"He was very pleased to hear we recaptured them. Although he was surprised it was I who had found them and not his loyal lapdog Seth." Jermak laughed bitterly. "Perhaps if he had had faith in my regime, I would not be here today plotting his demise."

"We have faith, General Jermak," Hathor purred. The cushions gave as she stood up and walked over to Jermak.

_Yeah, right_, Daniel thought sourly but kept quiet. At least she was no longer near him.

"What of your servant?" Jermak said, his voice deep and husky as he was heard stepping towards her as well. "Will he tell us what we want?"

"We told him we would not fetch him for two days," Hathor laughed throatily. "Already he hungers for another session in there."

Daniel tried to concentrate. He couldn't understand what she was talking about. Had he faded off during part of their conversation?

"He has not been reliable often he refused to tell you anything, my queen," Jermak muttered. He shifted, and there was silence for a moment. Then soft wet sounds and groans emanated from where they stood. Daniel wanted to throw up when he realized what the sounds were.

"He told us where our Beloved was hidden with the Tau'ri," Hathor purred, breaking free of the kiss. "For which we told him we would reward if he gives us the base as well."

Daniel stiffened.

"He will not tell you. We should just follow him and do away with his base."

"You can not follow without attraction. We must be able to strike in surprise or Ra will realize we were secreting our own servants to infiltrate." Hathor laughed. "We quite enjoy this game. He will break and tell us. He has been away from it for too long. He can barely survive without it any more. You will find it an amusing method of control, rather than kill every Tau'ri we encounter."

Infiltrate? \Captain O'Neill said someone told them where his brother was. Daniel could feel his breathing quickening. There was a spy in the rebels' midst.

"If you say so, my queen," Jermak agreed reluctantly. "But once we gain the throne, I will have no more games. Give him to me, and let me deal with him like I should have when we first caught him."

Hathor sighed. "Very well. We will amuse ourselves instead with these two."

Daniel clenched his fist tight around his abdomen.

"You will have much more to amuse yourself soon, Goddess," Jermak soothed. "Six more days and he will arrive. He will come to Tau'ri, perform the ceremony on this ship and then..." Jermak laughed.

"And then he will die, and we will rule," Hathor finished in a smug tone.

"He never should have scorned you, taken your nishta ability away."

"He never should have seek another queen!" Hathor hissed back. "The throne was ours! _We_ went to do Ra's bidding millennia ago._ We_ slaughtered planets of life to add to his bloody reign! And he flees at the first sign of rebellion, abandoning us to centuries of sleep in the sarcophagus!"

Daniel held his breath, hearing the bitterness, the anger seething from her words.

"Six days, Goddess. Six days."

Hathor sounded pleased as she murmured. "Yes...Six days."

It was all a trap. Daniel didn't know whether to be pleased Ra was finally going to get his or fear the next potential conquerors. All he knew was that he and Jack were bait.

And after that...

They had to get out of here.

Daniel struggled to rise, abandoning the idea of pretending sleep. He heard Hathor exhale sharply.

"He wakes," Jermak commented, sounding surprised. "They are much more resilient than they would appear." Footsteps over to Daniel and he felt a rounded tip of a boot poking him. Gasping, he tried to twist away but couldn't avoid a well-placed kick to his ribs. Daniel wrapped his arms around his sides, trying to protect it from abuse and received a kick into his fingers curled around him instead. Jermak was clearly enjoying this, restraining from causing permanent damage, just hard enough to cause pain.

"Enough!" Hathor called out sharply to Daniel's surprise.

Warm breath blew across his face. Daniel could feel someone hovering over him. He jerked, trying to hit him or her, try what he did before, maybe he could fumble for a key...

A hand grabbed him by the chin, forcing his face up.

"I see nothing to hold your interest, my queen! Must you obsess over this frail _re'klya_?" Jermak snorted and the hand released. Daniel's head dropped against the cushions once more. He could hear metal, something brushing against something else, and then a soft hum. Before he could draw any conclusions on what it was, he felt a warm heat cascading down to his forehead.

Ribbon device.

Something twisted inside him, the devices flaring like branding irons on his skin.

Daniel choked back a scream.

"See?" Jermak pointed out as the ribbon device grew to a high pitched hum. "It can not even take the _re'klya_ in the lowest of settings."

_God if that was the lowest_, Daniel thought as he felt his body twitch, out of control, writhing in agony.

"Enough!" Hathor's voice rang out.

The humming ceased; the warm beam was gone, but Daniel still felt his body shivering with the aftereffects, the throbbing in his head worsening with each breath he took.

"My queen..."

"We do not wish for the process to be quickened as of yet." Hathor was next to him again, hand brushing back his hair. Daniel flinched, turning his head, but he couldn't get away when she insistently reached back for his hair. With tenderness, she brushed against the sensitive skin around the devices, and Daniel gasped, unable to stop himself.

"Surely you can not be interested in taking him. He is a mere—"

"He is how we see fit!" Hathor snapped. "Do not meddle in our judgment! Stay with your focus on our plan and nothing more!"

Jermak sighed. "I am here to serve you, my queen. I am merely wondering if you are not favoring—"

"Who we favor and who we condemn is our business," Hathor said in a low voice. Daniel could sense her stooping over him, hand going up and down his arm. He winced. "You may take the other one, put him in a cell and leave this one with us."

Daniel struggled in his bonds at her words. But her hand curled into a claw, gripping his arm tightly. It felt like it was crushing it.

"Disagree with us again and your pain will increase tenfold, Beloved," Hathor whispered, switching to English. She tightened her grip once more in warning.

"I'm n-not your Beloved!" Daniel snapped back, wishing his voice was firmer. He kicked out, dismayed he didn't strike anything. He failed to get his arm free as well.

"See? He does not even appreciate your attentions, my queen," Jermak pointed out. "Why endure such insolence from the likes of him? Or have you not forgotten this animal was responsible for your first body's destruction. He forced you to hastily take a new host before it was primed? Let us speed up the punishment, and we can both watch the spectacle of his agony—"

"Chel mak!"

Daniel stilled. He couldn't translate that last sharp word. Daniel tried once more to pull away, biting his lip as her grip grew stronger. It felt like she was crushing his arm. He knew it was the devices flaring his nerves to raw, sensitive receivers, but it really felt like she was going to break his arm with one squeeze. He pulled, trying feebly to get away.

As if realizing his discomfort and for some odd reason as if caring she would harm him, Hathor let go.

"My queen...you have been corrupted by the likes of this Tau'ri..." Jermak whispered as if drawing up courage to speak finally after her outburst.

"We have not." Hathor stood. Daniel could hear the bells and chimes of her jewelry as she walked. "You pay mind to your tongue, Jermak."

Silence.

Daniel struggled to sit up but fell back as the muscles in his back rippled with sharp pain, his legs cramping. How was he supposed to get away? Or even think of helping Jack?

Daniel felt a hysterical laugh wanting to break free. He couldn't even sit up! Or even see where he was or Jack!

_Calm down. Jack said six days. We'll be gone in six days. It's just six days. Dan O'Neill had to endure...it'll only be six days. Jack said six days. _

A gong rang throughout the chamber, and Jermak was heard stomping over to the end of the chamber. A door was pulled open and the Goa'uld snapped at the person behind the door.

"I said we were not to be disturbed!"

"My lord," another voice, a meek one, replied. "There is a message from our lord Ra."

Daniel could hear Hathor suck in her breath.

"Ra?" Jermak paused. "Of course, of course. I will receive his word in here. Give me the message orb."

The door closed before Hathor hissed.

"Why are you taking the message in here? If he finds out we are with you in this battleship..."

"Be still. I know he may wish to see the prisoners as proof," Jermak soothed. "You do wish him to come, do you not?"

"Of course."

Jermak sounded far away, Hathor's jewelry tinkling at a distance. "Then conceal yourself among the shadows where he will not see you. I will report to you our success."

"What about our chosen?"

Daniel froze.

"We will return him to the cells, and later you may have him whenever you shall desire. But we must make haste. Ra will suspect if he does not see both before him in a prompt fashion."

Hathor hesitated, not responding before she finally left the chamber.

"Mad. She has gone mad over a _re'klya_," Jermak muttered as he came back towards Daniel. A soft hum was heard and suddenly, the Goa'uld's angry tone turned slick and smooth. "My lord! I am honored to receive word that you wish to speak with me."

"I wished to see them."

Daniel recognized the youthful voice of Ra. The even tones of an emotionless god, hiding the rage inside young flesh and glowing eyes. His words, higher in pitch, were still of the royal language of ancient Egyptian, unlike the common words he caught Jermak and Hathor speaking in, separating him from his subjects.

Ra still thought of himself as god.

Ra was still alive. Here. In this reality.

Daniel had hoped he would never have to hear that voice again.

"Of course, my lord. They are here. See?"

Abruptly, Daniel felt himself being pulled up, yanked by one arm. He jerked, trying to break free, but Jermak shook him so hard, it felt like his teeth rattled. Dazed, he found himself being half dragged to the center of the chamber.

"Here, lord Ra." Jermak pushed Daniel, and he stumbled a few steps before dropping to his knees, unable to stand. Body quivering, Daniel avoided facing the warmth he could feel directly above him.

"He bows," Ra said with amusement. "The _re'klya_ has finally learned to respect his god."

Daniel snorted. Before he could stop himself, he retorted back. "You're no god! You're just a monster inside a body you stol—"

"Jem tak nul!" A slap whipped his head back, and Daniel fell onto his back, breathless.

"I am sorry, lord Ra," Jermak hurried to say.

"Chel mak!" Ra shouted, his voice echoing throughout the chamber. His anger was a startling contrast to the smooth, calm, disinterested voice of before. "He speaks? How is this possible?"

"We found him without his _re'klya_—" Jermak babbled.

Ra roared, and Daniel could hear Jermak taking a step back. "What? _What?_ How is this possible? Who dared to release him? How did he gain access to a sarco—"

"We placed new ones in for you, my lord!" Jermak tried to salvage the situation, cruelly twisting Daniel's head towards the message orb as proof. "His brother must have taken him to one to heal before fleeing the ship. Your aide Seth must not have discovered their escape until—"

"Unacceptable. Unacceptable!" Ra didn't sound like he was being convinced.

Jermak roughly grabbed Daniel by the shoulders. "Talk! How did you take them off before? Who helped you?"

Daniel bit his lip, refusing to speak.

"Talk!" Jermak shouted over his ear. A warm beam heated Daniel's face once more. "Talk!"

Hot waves ripped into Daniel's body, the devices in his temples flaring once more. Daniel screamed. He couldn't stop himself. He found his hands clawing at the device hovered over him, trying to pull it away, but Jermak was stronger than him. He couldn't get away.

"Enough!" Ra barked, and the pain stopped. Daniel slumped over, folding over his knees into a fetal position. Exhausted, he could barely hear them talking even with them over his head. "I will question him myself when I arrive in five days!"

Daniel froze. _Five?_

"Five days?" Jermak stammered. He sounded just as surprised. He quickly recovered, however. "Of course, my lord. My apologies. I was told you were to arrive in another six days. I wished to prepare the temples in Tau'ri for the event of your arrival and the candidates for you to choose your new queen."

"This requires investigation," Ra said, dismissing Jermak's explanation. "I must know who aided him. I will not have someone meddling with my property."

"I'm not..." Daniel panted out deliberately in ancient Egyptian, flaunting the fact that he knew exactly what they were saying. "I'm not your property!"

"Quiet!" Jermak kicked him, and Daniel fell silent.

"Five days, General." Ra didn't sound impressed with Jermak's aggressive treatment or with Daniel's boldness. "Be ready for me in five days."

A chime rang and something clinked. Daniel heard something rolling towards him. Cold glass brushed against his arms, and he knew it was the message orb.

Conversation over.

"Five days," Jermak echoed what Daniel was thinking. "Five days. Che mar, he comes early."

Daniel laughed bitterly.

A fist grabbed Daniel by the hair, yanking his head back. "You find it amusing, _re'klya_? Eh? You find this new piece of news humorous?"

Daniel just laughed.

Jermak wrapped a large hand around Daniel's throat and squeezed. "Filthy _re'klya_! Shatter my plans like a clumsy snell beast!"

Unable to pry his hands away, Daniel flailed under his grip, his own fists lashing out, sometimes contacting flesh, sometimes air.

"He comes in five of your days. This was not the way it was to be," Jermak hissed. Daniel felt the heat of the ribbon device again. He struggled harder, but he couldn't even get a grip, a firm footing. Jermak was stooped over him, forcing him to remain on his knees, bending backward as the Goa'uld towered over him with his ribbon device.

"What..." Daniel wheezed. "What do you think will h-happen...when she...she finds me...d-dead?" Electric fire wracked his body, coursing down his back like hot, scalding needles pricking his spine. He could feel his arms turning to lead, dropping to his sides when they lost their strength.

"Filthy _re'klya_," Jermak hissed again before he dropped Daniel.

Gasping, Daniel found himself curling up, hand on his own throat. He wheezed, trying to get enough air in to soothe the sharp pain in his chest.

"Guards!" Jermak hollered. "Come here at once!"

Quickly, Daniel heard eager footsteps hastening through the heavy doors, pounding up to meet Jermak.

"Take this...this thing away with his kin. I don't want to see them again until I call. No one has access to them, especially to the _re'klya_!"

"What of Queen Hath—" one started to ask.

"I said none shall have access to them."

"But her Majesty Hathor—"

"My word is god's word here! Do not question it again!"

Daniel heard a sizzle and a heavy thud. With a chill, he realized whoever it was who asked the question was now dead.

"I will enjoy watching you through your last days of _re'klya_, Tau'ri," Jermak whispered into Daniel's ear as the guards forcefully pulled him to his feet. "You and your brother both. Perhaps I shall chain you to my throne and allow your brother to hear as we beat you daily as Ra once did."

Daniel wished he knew something witty to say. Something Jack could say that no matter what, no matter how dark the situation seemed, made the plight less formidable. But he couldn't think of anything clever to say, his tongue feeling swollen and his body sore. So he did the next best thing.

Daniel spat at Jermak's general direction.

A howl told him he hit his mark, but before Daniel could congratulate himself, he felt a backhand cracking across his cheekbone. Jermak was not happy.

"Chek mak!" Jermak was shouting. Daniel's ears rang too much to do the translation. "Hatak mo! Crel tel mak!"

Another slap. As Daniel gasped, sagging to the floor despite the strong grip under his arms, another slap whipped his head back until his face struck his raised arms.

His tenuous hold to consciousness was faltering; the darkness surrounding him felt darker. And Daniel stretched his hearing out once more, trying to hear for that one voice to assure him.

Nothing.

"Perhaps I should mark your brother now so you may be a set after all?" Jermak said in a low voice.

"N-no..." Daniel managed out. "Don't..."

"Undo the other's chains," Jermak ordered.

Daniel tried to lunge forward, to grab Jermak, do something! Anything! But the general laughed, already dismissing him as not a threat.

"Stop." Daniel croaked as he felt himself being pulled deeper into the chasm where his mind was teetering on the edge. "No..." He felt himself falling, falling, unsympathetic hands catching him, grabbing him like a sack of flour. And all the while, he heard Jack being dragged to the floor near him, the colonel making one last groan showing he was alive and kicking before Daniel's body couldn't take it anymore.

And the darkness became silence as well.


	19. Chapter 18

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**

_No one wanted him. No one wanted to take in an older boy. Everyone wanted a nice baby, not one almost seven years old. _

_"I wanna go home. I wanna go home," Dan whimpered over and over again, curling tight inside the blanket. _

_"Danny, why are you still awake? It's not even eight. Can't you sleep?" A hand touched his blanket covered back._

_Dan sniffed. He was trying very hard to be quiet. He could never be quiet when his parents were working, but they always seemed happy he wanted to join in. He thought all parents were like that. But when he wanted to help Lily figure out how the window got stuck, she smacked him for it. _

_"Danny?" Mrs. O'Neill pulled back the blankets a little, and he cringed. He hoped she didn't hit hard. Hands pulled at his waist, tugging until he was sitting up. "Shh...what's the matter, sweetie? Hm?" She pulled him closer, and hugged him. He was too surprised to do anything. He thought she was going to...for a moment, he thought she would..._

_"There, there. Sh..." She patted the back of his hair like Momma used to, and it felt nice. Very nice. He hadn't felt his momma hug him like this in a long time. _

_She wasn't Momma. This wasn't his mother hugging him. It was Mrs. O'Neill._

_"Sh...Don't cry. It's okay. There's nothing to be scared of."_

_"I wanna go home," Dan sniffed. When he started crying, he always knew how to stop it before Lily or the bad man made him stop, but he couldn't this time, and he got more and more scared as the tears kept coming. "I wanna go home. I wanna go home..." He buried his head in her shoulder, wishing it was his mother's shoulder, but she wasn't here. Nor his father. He was all alone. All alone..._

_"What's going on?" John's sleepy voice came into the room. Dan didn't look up though. He was too busy wishing he was somewhere else. He didn't want to go back to Lily, to the bad man. He just wanted to go home._

_"Danny's just a little nervous about meeting the social worker this morning, aren't you?" Mrs. O'Neill began to rock him, shushing him, but it only reminded him of someone else who did just that._

_"I wanna go home," Dan wailed. "I want Momma..." he hiccupped, unable to finish. _

_Another hand touched his arm, and he looked up with blurry, tearing eyes. John stared at him, not annoyed as he thought he would be but puzzled. _

_"What's the matter?" John made a face, confused. "Don't you want to stay here?"_

_Dan shook his head, then nodded. Finally, he gave up, crumpled up his face and sniffed once more. John panicked and pulled back his hand. _

_"Mom?" John asked, looking very nervous. _

_Mrs. O'Neill smiled down at John. "Do you want to watch him for a while? I'm going to get your father. It's a little early, but we could get ready to go now instead."_

_"But what about—"_

_"Just stay with him for a moment. Talk to him. I'll be right back."_

_Mrs. O'Neill set him back down on the bed, brushed hair away from his face and pulled the blankets around him a little tighter. She gave John a smile as if she knew something they both didn't and left. Dan clung to the covers, wishing he could stop crying. They made people mad, very, very mad._

_"Hey," John said awkwardly. He shifted from foot to foot. The teenager looked like he didn't know what to make of all this. "Uh...you okay?"_

_Dan rubbed his nose. He hiccupped, he sniffed but kept quiet other than that._

_"You said you wanted to go home before...you don't like it here?" John was still stepping left and right, looking at the carpet, hands in his pockets. "I mean if you didn't like it here, I wouldn't have made you come here, you know...I mean..."_

_"You have a very nice family," Dan sniffled. "I don't want to go back."_

_John frowned. "Huh? Oh...you mean...you mean her..." He lowered his voice. "You mean Lily."_

_Dan stared at the blanket, the squiggly lines and yellow patches all over the spread. _

_"Who said you were going back?" John sat down on the edge of the bed. "Mom was going to talk to Ms. Bren something—"_

_"Brenner."_

_"Right, Brenner. About adopting you." John grinned and gave Dan a light poke with his finger. "You'll be called Daniel O'Neill from now on."_

_Dan blinked at him. "Not Daniel Jackson?" He bit his lower lip. It sounded weird. It sounded like he wasn't Jackson anymore, and his parents were truly lost. He felt his eyes water again._

_"No, you could be both," John added hastily, sounding half-terrified seeing the tears coming again. "Like...uh...Daniel Jackson O'Neill."_

_Dan stopped, blinking at John. _

_"You could be both," John repeated tentatively as if he wasn't sure if the idea was well received. He shifted on the bed, hand rubbing the back of his neck. _

_"That's..." Dan tried in a hesitant voice. "That's a lot of letters..."_

_John started, staring at him for a moment before his grin returned. "Yeah, well, you did say you like words."_

_Nodding, Dan gave it some serious thought. "So I can live here with you...then?"_

_"Brothers," John corrected him. "We'll be family." _

_Dan blinked up at him. "So…I'm your brother?"_

_The older boy looked at him for a long moment before he gave him a light tap on the shoulder. "Yup. Cool," John just said, grinning._

_"Cool," Dan echoed. _

He woke up, feeling comfortable for the first time in a long time. He hadn't thought about that day in a while. Opening his eyes, he wanted to talk to John about it. He never did ask his brother what it was she had, although now he suspected he knew. It would be good to see him squirm.

The moment his eyes opened, the brief window before the devices threw him back into darkness, he saw a dark form standing by the bed, a large form who was not John, and he felt a momentary surge of panic. John wasn't here. He wasn't waiting as he usually—

_"None of this would have happened if you hadn't left us there!" _

Dan moaned to himself as his own words slapped him in the face. God, it hurt to hear them echoing in his head. He could only imagine how it must have sounded to John. His chest tightened, remembering John's stunned voice, ridden with guilt. He remembered how the door sounded when he shut it, finally going away as Dan wanted. All because of those damn words. And he knew they'd spin around his mind until the day he died.

"Are you well, Dan O'Neill?"

"Who's...who's there?" Dan croaked out.

"It is Teal'c."

Struggling to sit up, Dan was startled to find a pair of strong hands gripping his forearms, easing him into a better position.

"Thank you," he gasped. Dan hated how he sounded. He hated how he had to take a deep breath now to speak. Sitting there, head down, he gathered his thoughts before lifting his face up to public view. "Um, where was the nurse who was here? Uh...I can't recall her name."

"Wright." Dan could hear Teal'c sitting down on a chair finally. He remembered the faint outline of a large man, and he shifted uneasily.

"Perhaps I should leave." The chair creaked as Teal'c got up.

Panic flared as Dan realized he would be alone in the dark, and he sat up straighter, but before he could say anything, he hunched over coughing.

A hand guided him back against the headboard before pulling away. Dan nodded his thanks, voice raspy as he spoke. "No, I...I could use the company. I don't know what is going on."

"But I make you uncomfortable," Teal'c rumbled above his head.

Smiling weakly, Dan shook his head. "No, it's just what you represent."

"Jaffa."

Suppressing a shudder, Dan silently nodded.

"I was once First Prime, but I am no longer. I would not harm you, Dan O'Neill."

"That's..." Dan managed weakly, "That's nice to know..." He paused, cocking his head to the side, listening. "Is there anyone—"

"No. I had come to inquire about your well-being and found your brother was not present." Teal'c sounded puzzled.

Dan turned his head towards the wall and swallowed. "I told him to go." Dan's voice was small.

The Jaffa was silent for a long moment before he finally replied, "I see."

Dan laughed, tinged with hysteria. "Do you? Because I can't! I know this is for the best, that it's easier this way, but God, I can't stop feeling like I want to tell him to come back. It's so dark here. I can't..." He shuddered. What was he doing? "Sorry. I'm sorry, Mister Teal'c. I..."

"You are not well." Teal'c appeared to be making allowances for his illness.

"Well, I'm not going to be going bungee jumping any time soon if that's what you mean," Dan joked shakily.

"Bungee jumping?" Teal'c sounded confused.

"Never mind." Dan slid back down on his bed, too tired to bother with the appearance of feeling okay. He didn't feel okay. He was tired of pretending he was. So he lay there, wishing the aches in his joints, the throbbing behind his eyes would go away, but they didn't.

"I will get Doctor Frasier." A chair skidded as Teal'c rose.

"No!" Dan lifted his head before dropping it back down, exhausted. "There's nothing more she can do..." He winced, realizing he'd said too much.

Teal'c was silent again.

Dan lay back on the pillow and stared upward in his darkness, trying to envision what the room might look like.

"You are dying." It wasn't a question.

Dan sighed. Reluctantly, he nodded.

"Then why is John O'Neill is not here?"

"I won't let him watch me die," Dan said firmly. "When we go back and find Sammy...I'll ask her to take me somewhere else..."

"Is that wise?"

Dan frowned and turned his head towards the voice. "Excuse me?"

"John O'Neill would not be pleased."

"Well, it's not up to him to decide. This is my decision." Dan rolled to his side, back towards Teal'c. Then a thought occurred to him, and he struggled to sit up again.

Teal'c could be heard walking over, hands slipping around his back and lifting him up, making no complaint about having to do so. Just like John would never complain.

"You..." Dan fumbled, grabbing Teal'c by the arm. Startled to realize the man was very muscular, large, and he could only imagine formidable, yet very careful in his handling of him, Dan shifted away from the Jaffa, suddenly realizing how big he was just like the other guards.

"I would not harm you, Dan O'Neill," Teal'c rumbled as he saw the young man flinch, breath quickening. "As I promised Daniel Jackson, I will to you. I would not harm my comrades. You have my oath as a warrior."

"M-may I have your oath on s-something else?" Dan gasped out, trying to remain calm, reminding himself Teal'c was no longer anyone's Jaffa.

"You may."

"D-don't tell John. He hears none of what we spoke about." Dan drew up the courage to reach out again and grabbed Teal'c desperately by the arms. "He knows nothing of this."

Silent, Teal'c stood over Dan, considering what was asked of him. For a while, Dan panicked, thinking he might refuse and his grip grew tighter.

"Please...shur hyko...shur h-hyko Jaffa..." Dan whispered a common prayer he had overheard from Jaffa, about success of victory. He only hoped it meant the same for this one.

Teal'c stiffened. "I will not say a word to your brother, Dan O'Neill."

Dan nearly sagged in relief. "Thank you," he whispered brokenly. "Thank you."

Teal'c said nothing, only easing him back down onto the bed, the gesture oddly like John's. Dan bit his lip as he felt the covers drawn up over him again, so like his brother as well. As Teal'c stepped away, back to the chair where he sat, Dan thought of a prayer for John as well.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

General Hammond didn't know why he'd wandered to the lower decks where the gyms and the canteen were. The Stargate room had been active since the loss of two good men, friends even when they were off the base. Teams were streaming back and forth, taking shifts guarding the mirror chamber of P9H-521; technicians were traveling back and forth with meters and recorders, all trying to get more readings on the strange surface, trying to figure out why the mirror was not letting them go. His office, once quiet, lost its calm with the constant ringing of phones, soldiers walking in and out with progress reports, alarms invading his alcove as they rang in more travelers. But despite all the activity, the streams of work coming in, the results were still the same.

Colonel Jack O'Neill and Doctor Jackson remained trapped on the other side.

MIA. Missing in action.

Three letters he didn't want to tag on them. Not when the reminders of what could become of them were sitting in a comfortable VIP suite in this base. And the phone calls ringing from the red phone, from Washington, demanding to know what the progress was didn't help. All he could say was they were working on it.

Any moment now, he would be getting the next call, a brusque voice trying to be sympathetic while at the same time telling him to shut down the mirror chamber and stop the search attempt.

It could happen anytime.

The fact that Ra was alive in another reality had spooked the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Spooked them enough to okay the mission to make sure the Goa'uld weren't already here. And spooked enough to pull the plug on the rescue mission at the first sign of something wrong.

Two men to billions.

No math was required to calculate the risk factor. Hammond knew how they would decide. He understood the logic of their thinking. He knew it was the next move Washington would want him to make.

And suddenly, he didn't want to take the call.

So, he walked.

And found himself in front of the gym, watching Captain John O'Neill try to murder the punching bag hanging in front of him. Sweating, shirt soaked to the skin, he did not realize he had an audience. Nor, did he probably care.

Hammond stood there, debating on leaving, giving the man some peace. But as he saw the anger etched in the face, the wild blows that didn't even move the punching bag an inch, Hammond knew there was no peace available for him. And he knew a good portion of the reason why.

_"I don't want him to know."_

_Hammond blinked, thinking maybe he'd misheard. "What?"_

_Dan O'Neill struggled to sit up higher on the bed. Leaning back on the upright bed, Dan tilted his head his way._

_"What we're hearing right now, about my...condition, stays only between the three of us."_

_"Not even your brother?" Janet asked. Hammond couldn't speak. "Are you sure? He would want to know—"_

_"No, he wouldn't!" Dan snapped, cutting her off. He coughed into his fist, waving his other hand as he heard both of them approaching. "No, no. Please. This is exactly why I don't want John to know." He waved towards himself. "Every cough, every sneeze, every time I tire, he'll be all over me, drop everything to help me."_

_"That's because you're his brother, Doctor O'Neill," Hammond reminded him. "You're all thatt's left of his family."_

_Dan shook his head, appearing very frustrated. "There's too much at stake! We need to get back before Ra comes. If he finds out I'm termin—" Dan swallowed. "He won't leave. And he might not let me leave! He'll go running off on some reckless mission, hoping to end it quick and fast and find some cure that's not even there!" Dan swung out a hand, angry, striking a nearby IV stand. The metal pole bounced, spinning before crashing to the floor. _

_Doctor Frasier only shook her head, picking up the IV pole without another word. _

_"Doctor O'Neill," Hammond turned the young man's attention towards him. "We will of course, respect your wishes. This is between the two of you. But I ask you...should you be doing this?"_

_"I asked the same question," Frasier said in a soft voice. _

_"I don't want him hanging around just waiting for me to die. He needs to stay away, focus on the mission at hand, not let guilt slow his reactions and blind him to reality. I guess it is hard for you to understand, but..." Dan O'Neill lowered his voice. "Your wife...you said she had cancer...did she...how did she spend the last of her days?"_

_Hammond found his mouth suddenly dry. He didn't know why he'd ever mentioned his wife to the ailing scientist. But at the time, the thin wrists, the spirit pinned down by a body too weak to match the soul, was a painful reminder of someone he saw slowly ebb away until he was alone. _

_"She stayed by the patio. With the book she was reading. Her hand was on the bookmark from the last spot." Hammond looked above Dan's head. He could still see her. "We moved her bed to face the window so she could watch the sun. And while I told her of my day, of our grandchildren's day, she left."_

_"She got to do what she wanted. She didn't stay in some bed in a hospital, waiting to die." Dan whispered in the same tone as Hammond had. _

_"She didn't like hospitals. Never did." Hammond looked down at O'Neill. "And I suppose neither do you."_

_"I'm not trying to be cruel, General," Dan said in a regretful voice. "I just want you to understand."_

_"I do." Hammond noted Doctor Frasier had made no comment and continued. "But we were there at least, to ease her pain, send her off on her journey with her family around her. What you're suggesting..."_

_"You would be alone then," Frasier finally spoke up._

_Dan lifted his head up, chin sticking out stubbornly. "I was alone in that hell with Ra for a long time." He leaned into the bed, blank eyes staring at nothing. "What's a few weeks more if that's what I've got?"_

"General Hammond, sir." John straightened when he finally realized he wasn't alone in the gym. Wiping sweat from his face, he discarded the gloves quickly and stood taller out of habit.

"Many have found this place to be a good distraction," Hammond waved towards him, signaling he didn't need a salute.

"Really?" The captain stared at the gym mats under his feet. He wiped more sweat off his brow using the sleeve of his flightsuit. He hadn't even bothered to change.

"Has it worked as a diversion for you?"

"I don't need distracting, sir. I'm just a little impatient, that's all. I don't like sitting around doing nothing."

_Sounds just like your brother. _Hammond thought briefly back to the ailing scholar but made no comment. "Major Carter is still working on how the mirror portal works, Captain."

"I know, sir. I just wish..." Sighing, John threw up his hands. Glancing around the deserted gym, he made a face. The itchy feeling, the little voice screaming for action had not abated. "I should go back up and help Major Carter. Maybe there's something I could help her with—"

"How is your brother doing, if I may ask?" The general interrupted, stopping O'Neill in his tracks.

"He's doing fine. He's getting better," John said in a flat voice.

Hammond studied the captain carefully.

"What?" John asked tightly.

Staring steadily at him, Hammond took a deep breath. "He looked very ill when I last saw him, Captain," he said carefully.

"But he's getting better. He's hanging in there. Once we get through and defeat Ra, we'll get the cure from the bastard and—"

"What if you don't?" Hammond cut in abruptly.

Now it was John's turn to stare. "What?"

"What if you don't?"

John shook his head. "We will."

"You don't know that for sure, son," Hammond said.

"We will. If they could put them in, then they can take them out."

Hammond could see the determination in the captain's clenched jaw. This was what the younger brother feared. Hammond had seen this in many commanders. And watched their backs break the moment defeat arrived. No matter how small. How insignificant. It could break belief.

It could break a man.

"All Dan needs to do is wait and get better. Once this is all over, we'll get them to take them out and—"

"If they're willing to part with the knowledge." the general interrupted.

"God, you sound like my brother!" John exploded. He turned his back to Hammond and struck the punching bag. Spinning around to face the officer again, John glared at him.

Hammond ignored the glower. "I merely want you to be prepared for the fact that not everything can always go as planned."

"I know that!" John seemed to forget that Hammond was a higher ranking officer. He paced around the general like a stalking beast. He took a deep breath before continuing. "He's going to get better, sir. There's no room for what ifs in that."

Hammond only looked at O'Neill. "You don't have anything to make up for, Captain," he said in a quiet voice. John stared at him.

"Me? Make up for—" John stopped, unable to form the connection, then nodded after a few seconds. "You think I blame myself for what happened to my brother, don't you?"

"Don't you?" Hammond countered.

"What do you think?" O'Neill snarled. He stalked over to the gym doorway before Hammond's voice stopped him.

"Your brother doesn't blame you, Captain. And you shouldn't push yourself to keep trying just to make up for some crime you didn't commit—"

"How do you know my brother doesn't blame me?" John hissed, coming up, inches away from the general. "He said in more than enough words that he does!"

Hammond blinked in surprise. Hammond closed his eyes briefly. So this was the way Dan O'Neill was making sure he was going to be okay. General Hammond was beginning to wish he'd never promised his silence.

"And that's not just it," John whispered. Hammond looked up and found the captain holding the punching bag with both hands, gripping the leathery surface tightly. Staring at the gym equipment, John went on.

"When I first met him...he was barely...seven, just a little over six..." John smiled sadly at the memory. "Damn kid looked like a moppet, floppy hair, standing there. I don't know why I bothered stopping in that tree to rest that day...I was going to just keep going...keep moving, but I decided to rest instead. And saw this...mutt under the tree. And I decided to take him home. My home. _Our_ home." John kept staring at the punching bag, the wet streaks of sweat marring the surface where his fists had struck, cracks in the leathery skin making it look old and worn. "He was scared. Hell, normal. I mean, how are you supposed to react when some big kid tries to drag you away to another new place? He didn't look like he was going to follow me."

Fascinated by the story, Hammond asked, "What did you do?"

John tilted his head. "I...don't know actually...I was just a kid myself then...but..." He sounded amazed by his own recollection. "I stuck out my hand and told him...told him..." The captain turned to look at Hammond. "That there was nothing to be scared of. Because I was there."

Hammond smiled sadly. "Apparently, that worked, Captain."

"Yeah, he suddenly became my own personal project. He straightened me out more times than I can remember, and I helped break a few noses for him." John laughed, but it sounded odd like it was forced. "I guess I made good on my promise...most of the time...I made sure as long as I was there...he would be okay..."

"You two were very close." It wasn't a question. Hammond knew.

"He was never scared when I was there...I made sure of it..." John's voice trailed off. "The only time I really heard him scared was when I first got him back from Ra."

John ran a hand through his hair. His eyes looked gray with exhaustion.

"Carried him home...what was left of it that is...when he came to," John sucked in his breath. "He didn't know who I was at first. He was afraid of me..." John turned his eyes to Hammond as if he still couldn't believe it himself.

"I wasn't there to stop this from happening so yes, I feel guilty. But you don't understand. Since the day I met him, I made this promise to myself. He wasn't going to be scared again"

John turned anguished eyes on the punching bag. "I broke it on the day I left them to fend for themselves. I want him to see all of us back together again as a whole."

"Does he know this?" Hammond asked.

John appeared puzzled. "Huh?"

"About this promise. About it not only being from guilt."

"We never really had a chance to talk about..._stuff_, General," John said flatly.

Hammond stood there, studying the man as he paced around the punching bag. "You can't just head into battle without thinking about the consequences."

"Look, I'm not dismissing what you're saying. Dan's been wanting to..." John bracketed the next words with his fingers making quotation marks in the air. "Talk about his condition since the first day I got him back from Ra. Nothing's changed. We'll talk after Ra is gone. He just needs to hold on until then."

Brown eyes blazing like coals, John lifted his head. "He's giving up right now and won't even take my help because he blames me." He punched the bag in front of him, but it barely moved under his halfhearted attempt. "He won't listen." He gazed at the leathery surface before placing his forehead on it. His shoulders sagged. "Not to me anyway."

_He's not giving up. He just has no more options left_, Hammond thought. His promise to the dying young man was closing up his throat like a vise.

It struck him both older O'Neills felt it was their duty to protect Daniel.

_"Can we get this damn car out of here?" a voice roared out of the blue._

_Glass shattered in a loud explosion as wood met glass in one swift move. Everyone on the patio spun around, looking around the corner to the garage where Jack O'Neill had just smashed his hockey stick into some poor person's car during Daniel Jackson's wake._

_"Sir," one of the nurses looked over to him helplessly. Since SG-1 had come back, none dared to approach the unpredictable colonel about the topic of Daniel's death. _

_Hammond patted the nurse and walked out over to the gravel driveway. Standing by Jack's side as the man heaved, glaring at the glittering broken glass, Hammond knew the explosion had just started._

_"What's on your mind, Colonel?" he asked calmly as Jack kicked the pieces with his sneakers._

_"Retirement," Jack muttered, "actually." He squeezed the hockey stick handle, looking like he was going to swing again._

_Hammond looked at the slouched back, the resigned expression on the colonel's face. "You don't mean that," he told Jack._

_Giving him a sideways look, Jack shook his head. "I think I do." _

_Hammond frowned. He knew the colonel was upset, but he hadn't expected O'Neill to give up on the entire team because of it. Thinking quickly, Hammond turned down his request. "Well, I can't let you do that at the moment. I've got an assignment for SG-1. Doctor Jackson's apartment needs to be closed by Stargate personnel." He tried to soften the order by lowering his voice. "National Security issues aside, you're probably the closest thing he had to a family." He watched as Jack's eyes saddened, hooded in shadows. "It's not an order, it's a request."_

_Giving up, Jack murmured, "Yes, sir."_

_It was something. Hammond didn't want to see Jack's resignation forms on his desk. "Why don't you come join the others in the back?"_

_Jack's shoulders slumped as he leaned his hockey stick up against the garage door. "Yes, sir," he repeated again more tiredly._

_Hammond sighed to himself, knowing he hadn't really done anything to help. He patted Jack on the shoulder before regretfully looking back on the poor car. "You know that's my car, don't you?"_

_Jack blinked and looked behind his shoulder as well, wincing. "You should get that window fixed." _

_Arching an eyebrow at Jack, Hammond only went "Uh hm" as he steered him back to the yard. Dropping his arm from Jack's shoulder, he noted the still tired expression on Jack's face._

_"It wasn't your fault...Jack. Daniel knew the risks being on SG-1."_

_"He was screaming for me to help him, sir." Jack didn't smile as others came around giving him sympathetic smiles before backing away awkwardly. "Daniel was expecting me to save him."_

_"You don't know that."_

_Jack stopped in the middle of the lawn, staring at Hammond, his eyes filled with self-recrimination. _

_"Do you know what I told him in the beginning, sir?" _

_Hammond shook his head and stood there waiting. _

_"I told Daniel we were going to find them—Sha're and Skaara." Jack paused. When he spoke again, his voice was tight. "And I said we, sir. Not me. We."_

_"Daniel understood you tried everything," Hammond attempted to reassure him. _

_"Did he? I like to think I can always keep my promises with my friends." Jack spat at the ground, his eyes angry. "So much for that, huh?" With that, he stalked away, the slouch gone from his shoulders, replaced with an angry, stiff posture instead._

"SG-5 are going back to P9H-521 in an hour to get some more readings of the portal," General Hammond said in a quiet voice. "They could use the additional manpower."

John lifted his eyes, still holding onto the punching bag.

Hammond waved towards the gym with a sweep of his hand. "Obviously, you don't need a distraction." He smiled sadly, eyes understanding. "You need to be doing something."

"Thanks for the offer, sir. I'll get myself ready," John said in a hoarse voice. He kicked at the gloves on the floor before walking towards the exit.

Hammond stared at the punching bag before sighing. Shaking his head sadly, he left as well.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

_"Ah yes! The last piece...then...your brother's turn."_

Agony mixing with panic made him wake up. At first, he couldn't move which was probably best when he realized he was being carried. He could feel hard metal armor under his knees, the sharp edges digging into the back of his shoulders.

_Jack?_ Daniel tried opening his eyes, but for some reason he couldn't. He scrunched up his eyes and tried once more, but when darkness greeted him, he remembered.

He couldn't see. It was totally dark.

_Okay...now is not the time to panic_, he told himself as he felt his chest clench. The temptation to lash out his hands to grab hold was growing. Too late. He closed his eyes again, feeling them squeeze tight. _Stay still. Keep quiet, Jackson. Just like before._

Someone was talking.

Daniel's head rolled to the side during the bobbing up and down by whoever was carrying him, and he began to note differences. Like the fact the voice didn't sound like Jack at all. The fact the language was Goa'uld. The fact that there were more footsteps than one pair.

"Shem tol...chak ja Hathor...shem Jermak tu telmok sol..."

Okay, from what Daniel could tell, his carrier was a Jaffa. One of Hathor's men, in fact. He couldn't get the words clear in his mind though as the voices went from loud, then soft, alternating too quickly for him to try and catch them. And by the steady way they were walking, the constantly nauseating up and down bobbing motion of their arms, he was being taken down a straight hallway.

"Shum tel O'Neill..."

Wait. He thought he heard Jack's name.

He felt the guard stopping, turning slightly as if facing a door. Daniel heard a soft hum, after two different high pitched chimes and something sliding sideways. When the warm breeze wafted over his face, he knew it was a door that had just opened.

"Trek mo shaki te!" Put...put who in here? Daniel tried to figure out who it was they were referring to.

Someone groaned, mumbling. Daniel could hear the soft shuffle of something being dragged before a creak of metal squawked, then a thud when the body was thrown. More footsteps following after the body which filled Daniel with a chill when he realized the thud could only be Jack.

A crack of a whip.

Daniel nearly cried out when he heard it hit flesh, the inflicted one barely grunting in response. Whoever was carrying him laughed, the rumble vibrating against his cheek and seeming to course down his body like lightning. Dimly, in the back of his mind, Daniel wondered if this was what it felt like for his double in the beginning. The feeling of everything ignited in white heat, every nerve raw and sensitive. Even the metal chest armor pressed against his cheek felt sharp enough to him to slash open his face. It was a brief thought before another lash brought him back to the current situation. He cringed inwardly as he heard the hiss of the whip. The guard carrying him began loosening his hold, and he wondered briefly if this was a good chance for him to break free. He could even feel the scrape of a key hanging from a waist chain, digging into his hip.

Before Daniel could even debate over it, he felt the warm breeze cut off, the horrible sounds of the whip against flesh gone as the door closed to the chamber Jack was taken in, and the bobbing up and down started again.

They were taking him away.

Daniel clenched his fists, hidden in his lap, unnoticed. He tried to count the steps, try and tell where they were taking him. He loosened his fists, hoping the guard didn't see and carefully tried to loop a finger around the chain in hope of snapping it from the guard's waist. Maybe he could find his way out somehow.

_Keep counting, Jackson_, he told himself as his fingers found the cool metal of the key. _Ten...eleven...twelve...just grab hold of the...no...we're stopping..._

Before he could grab the key and get a good grip, he felt himself being transferred over to another guard. Different man but the same feeling of metal scraping against him like a blade. A door whooshed open after another set of chimes, a chilling wind gushing out to snap at his skin, and he felt himself being carried in.

The echoes of the footsteps told him wherever this place was, it was large, vast. He could hear the guard from before, calling out to say he was leaving, and he panicked. How was he supposed to grab the key now and escape? Forgetting he was feigning unconsciousness, he struggled in the other's arms.

"Shem mok re'klya," the new guard commented with mild surprise and laughter was heard from inside the new room. Pretense gone now, Daniel twisted in the Jaffa's grip, to break free, and maybe try for the door.

Another guard grabbed him by the ankles, but not before he got a good kick in his face. Cursing, the guard squeezed, chuckling as Daniel cried out, his nerves so sensitive, the grip felt like he was being branded with an iron.

"_Re'klya_!" the guard spat, and Daniel heard the creak of a barred door opening. With a brief swing, he was tossed in. He rolled a bit before slamming into the walls. Gasping, he got up, pushing off with his hands and groping around in his enforced darkness for the door. As he felt his fingers touch the bars of the cage, the door slammed loudly. So loud, the vibrations shook the cell and up his arms like an electrical shock.

Daniel jerked back, his back now cramping as the tremors twisted his insides. He couldn't bite back the groan as his stomach clenched as well, doubling him over in agony.

"_Re'klya_," the guard laughed now and kicked the cell door before walking away. The bars still rang as footsteps faded away into the corridor.

No, Daniel couldn't just lie here and wait for the same to happen to Jack. He grabbed the bars and pulled himself into a sitting position. He faintly heard the door open and shut from afar, and there was only his harsh breathing filling the room now.

"Hello?" Daniel called out to be sure.

Nothing. He was alone.

Daniel fumbled around, felt the cinder blocks framing the cell door, groped around the crisscross barred door until he felt a square block along the left borders of the door.

No keyhole.

He couldn't even pick it even if he tried to stick his finger in it out of desperation.

_"Know this...I will present a set to our pharaoh Ra."_

No! He couldn't let this happen to Jack as well. He couldn't! Daniel called out in the cell, screaming, trying to get anyone to come in. But his voice echoed inside the huge room, his hands digging deeply into the diamond shaped spaces of the chilled bars of his cell. It felt like a fence with the crisscross bars, but was sturdier than the fences he'd seen on Earth. He shook the cage door, but not surprisingly, it stayed steadfast, yielding not one inch under his fists.

Standing, Daniel felt around the walls, gasping as his chest grew tighter and tighter, a piercing sensation running up his legs and arms as the exploration became a simple, desperate hold on the cracks in the walls to stay upright. His head throbbed, pounding, threatening to explode. Everything was cramping painfully one minute, then numb the next. Daniel found himself struggling just to stand. He couldn't pass out. He had to stay awake and find a way out. He couldn't…

Boneless, Daniel slid against the coarse wall, cheek scraping against the rough surface as he lost the battle.

"J-jack," he croaked before crumpling to the floor, energy bleeding away from him like an open wound. He lifted his hand towards the cell once more, but it proved to be too much, and the hand dropped as he lost consciousness.


	20. Chapter 19

**CHAPTER NINETEEN**

It seemed like she couldn't get comfortable.

Janet shifted in her chair, wiggling to ease sore muscles into the generously padded seat, but her body ached more instead.

Giving up, she rose from her chair and headed for the coffee machine. Plucking a cup from a stack, she checked her pot and to her disgust, found it empty. Muttering, she tossed the cup in the trash before she remembered she didn't use it at all.

"What a waste," she grumbled to herself.

A waste.

Shoulders slumping, Janet found herself needing to sit down after all. She plopped down into the chair facing the front of her desk. She let her arms dangle down the side and tilted her head back.

She wondered if Dan had awakened yet.

She wondered if Daniel was awake somewhere.

She wondered if her counterpart was with him.

_Don't think about it. Think about your patients_, she told herself and closed her eyes briefly to gather her thoughts. She stuck her hands in her pockets, debating going up there to check on Dan, but she'd left a nurse with the young man. Frasier wanted to try one last test, retry the last experiment and hope for a miracle.

She didn't get one.

Every frequency did the same thing to his blood samples. High frequencies, low frequencies, she even tried alternating back and forth between the range, attacking the nanocytes in hopes it would do as it did for Colonel O'Neill when they forced his aging process to speed up. The nanocytes just continued what they were doing, attacking every cell, destroying the structure until the mangled form of cell floated away like dead waste.

Life was precious. Janet didn't need to go to medical school to know that. But becoming a doctor made her realize how fragile and precious life was. And she always thought of herself after taking her Hippocratic Oath as a mender, a healer.

It never occurred to her to be anything else.

Frasier dully noted in other doctors' offices, like Warner's or Mackenzie's, they'd hung their diplomas and honors all over like they would stripes and medals on a uniform. The walls of their offices were their uniforms. And they wore every decoration proudly.

If she was going to prove she was a good doctor, she proved it with her steady hands. She didn't need any paper on the wall.

"Keep busy," Janet said out loud. She nodded to herself. _Keep busy, keep tryin_g. She could do that. Maybe the distraction would keep her hands steady. If not, at the very least, perhaps keep her from checking on Dan O'Neill needlessly every few minutes or so. There were two more people out there. Two more from her reality who could suffer the same fate. When they return, she needed to be ready to help them and be successful in taking the devices out that were most likely placed in by her double.

Her hands shook for a second.

Clenching her jaw, Janet stuck her hands in her lab coat's pockets and took a deep breath. Perhaps she would check on Dan once more before heading for Sam's lab. Maybe the major had figured out a way to get them back, and they could start working on how to help them when they did.

Without a backward glance for her office, Doctor Frasier walked out of the room, keeping her hands in her pockets, her steps long and purposeful.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

"So what now?" Daniel could hear them talking outside the small cell. Straining to hear, he raised his head, only to drop it again when the pain became immense. His hearing flickered in and out as if they were far away at first then close.

The door creaked open, and he stiffened. He could hear the sharp intake of breath as the newcomers cast their eyes on him. He sat up straighter, trying to not give in to the instinctive reaction to press closer to the walls.

"Ah hell."

Daniel tilted his head, puzzled. It didn't sound like the guards.

Hands gripped him around the shoulders, and he jumped.

"Easy. Easy, Doc. We got you. I—what the hell did they do to your hair?" A voice, so familiar, floated around him like a breeze, but Daniel couldn't give the voice a face.

"This looks fresh." Another voice, lightly accented, feminine, and maddeningly familiar, sounded surprised as he felt fingers tracing along the devices on his temples. Daniel flinched, turning his head away.

"Fresh? No." The hand jerked back as Daniel groaned when the devices were touched; the torn skin around the _re'klya _shrieked with agony, and his mind seem to freeze in still frame, holding on to the pain for a second too long. "Easy, pal. Sorry about that. That shouldn't have hurt. No way. He had them for three—" the gruff voice paused, and he felt his wrist being held up, a finger brushing against the tight bracelet. "What the...have you seen anything like this before?"

"No. I have not," the female replied, puzzled. "Is he awake?"

"Can't tell. Looks like he's out of it again...Doc?" A hand shook Daniel.

Everything spun out of control. Daniel heard them, their voices distorting every other second, and for a brief moment, he wondered if they were even really there. They sounded familiar. He hung there, shivering, limp in their hold, debating in his mind whether he was being haunted by hallucinations or just losing hold of reality. He could see Hathor, then Janet's face flashing in front of him, mouths moving, but he could no longer hear the words. There was something important he heard...something...why couldn't he think of it?

Jack!

"Wait a minute, I think he's coming to." A hand gently shook his shoulder again, another hand bracing the back of his head. "Doc? Doc? You with us here?"

And suddenly, Daniel knew where he had heard the voice before. It stunned him for a moment, recognizing the voice like an echo from the grave. He took a deep breath and forced it back out in shape of a word.

"K-Kawalsky?"

"What?" Kawalsky sounded relieved. Daniel moaned softly as he felt hands unknowingly brushing against sharp biting wounds in his side where Jermak kicked him, and he slid slowly against their palms. He wanted nothing more than to lie back in the presence of safety and sleep. But he had to tell them. He had to get them to rescue Jack.

"P-please..." he whispered as he felt Kawalsky checking his pulse. "I'm...I'm not who you think I am...but I need your h-help..."

"We're getting you out," the man promised. A strong hand gripped his shoulder in reassurance.

"We'd better hurry," the female voice said, roughened as if due to experience rather than age. Where had he heard it before? "The guards will come soon to change shifts. This is the only opportunity we will have to do this."

"I know. I know. I just wish we knew where his..." Kawalsky stopped as if not wanting to say it in front of Daniel. He was slipping hands under Daniel's arms, readying to lift. "I can't drag him away yet. He needs time—"

"Time we do not have. I was only fortunate I was able to take a recorder from Jermak's private rooms. I may not have another opportunity again to slip you in. They will be guarding the Stargate more closely with Ra's pending arrival in six days."

"I'm hurrying. Come on, Doc. Up we go..." Kawalsky began to haul him up.

"N-no..." Daniel clenched his fists, frustrated. They didn't understand. "Jack..."

"Cap?"

"No...Colonel O'Neill..." Daniel tried to get up, using them as leverage. The younger man managed to get into a low crouch when his legs buckled, dropping him hard on his knees to the ground. Hands gripped his forearms tightly, preventing him from sprawling. He lifted his head higher, trying to track the direction of the voices and bumped into someone. Someone smaller, like a female. "But he's not...we're not..."

Kawalsky didn't understand. His grip tightened though, leaning closer to Daniel's face. "Dan? You know where he is?"

"They have him somewhere down the hall. I heard them...they were going to do the same to him." Daniel swallowed. "Like me."

"Shit." Daniel felt Kawalsky stand up and begin pacing. "Okay, we were planning for someone to keep an eye on him, but we're going to have to risk it now."

The woman kept her hands around Daniel's shoulders, supporting him into a sitting position. "I do not know where he is. I only knew of this cell. There are hundreds. And we need the code."

"I- I do..." Daniel whispered, trying to stay alert. He struggled to remember. Why was it so hard to remember? It could have only happened a few minutes ago. "When they were taking me here, I counted...counted...I think twelve long steps, going straight down to here from his cell."

"What of the code?" Kawalsky asked urgently.

"I heard 'omething l-like bells. One higher...one lower..."

Daniel felt something pressed into his hands, a square panel with raised buttons. He clutched it tighter, recognizing the familiar cool surface of the Goa'uld stone tablet.

"Press them. Tell me which ones they sound like," the woman asked, clasping her hand over his before pulling away.

Daniel scrunched up his face, head pounding as he fought to remember. He tried every key, twelve in all, listening to them over and over again as he tried to remain calm. He couldn't make any mistakes. He had to get Jack out of there.

"These two," Daniel said shakily, finally deciding on two that sounded the closest. He felt someone grab the panel away, another squeeze to his hand before retreating.

Kawalsky muttered something to his companion before directing back towards Daniel. "Listen. You stay here with him. I'm going to go get Cap."

Not Cap. Jack. Daniel realized they still didn't know and tried to explain, but he could barely draw another breath. "Wait...you don't understand..."

Footsteps hurrying away didn't slow at his words. And Daniel was left alone with this unknown voice. He sat there, gasping, shivering as more shocks coursed up and down his body.

"You are not him, and yet you are," a deeper voice over the soft one vibrated into his right ear. Daniel started, jerking back as he heard the distinct vocal partnership of a Goa'uld. He started to shout for Kawalsky to come back, to tell him that the woman was not a friend.

A hand clamped over his mouth tightly. So tightly, he fell back to the ground from the force of it. His teeth rattled on impact.

"Do not make any noise lest we be discovered!" the voice hissed. "I did not want to alarm Kawalsky unless you are truly the enemy, but you are not. Not with the _re'klya_ on you." She leaned closer, and Daniel thought he caught a whiff of musk oils in her hair which brushed against his cheek. "Will you be silent if I release my hand?"

Daniel nodded, then stilled.

Hand remaining over his mouth, the speaker seemed to be waiting until the door to the cell closed.

When the footsteps completely disappeared, the female leaned closer to his ear. "I am not Goa'uld," the voice whispered. "I am a friend." The hand slipped away from Daniel's mouth.

Daniel moistened his lips, running his tongue nervously over his mouth. "T-Tok'ra?" he hazarded a guess.

The woman audibly sucked in her breath. "You know of us?"

Daniel nodded.

"Yet, we know not of you." The woman pulled Daniel up to a sitting position. "The one called Dan-yel O'Neill had his _re'klya_ for much longer." Fingers traced the minute trickle of blood on one side of his temples. "Your wound is still fresh."

"I came through a portal—"

"Chapa'ai?"

"Not exactly," Daniel whispered, sagging sideways as he felt no strength to stay upright. The woman Tok'ra caught him easily enough and set him gently to the floor. "Alternate reality..."

Daniel could hear the woman pause.

"I am not aware of such occurrences."

"I am; of many...many possibilities. We came through a portal to a universe that is different from ours." Daniel waved absently towards the cell surrounding him. "In my world Ra is dead."

"Then your world was indeed fortunate," the Tok'ra replied.

Daniel gave a funny laugh. "If you say so..."

"Such a world freed from Ra is indeed a heaven in itself." The woman stopped. She sounded confused. "Why do you visit this reality then?"

Chuckling wryly, Daniel tried to ignore the tingling sensation in his legs. "Would you believe to help you?"

The woman sounded amused as she replied in a dry voice. "Indeed."

Daniel's laugh deepened, but it broke off into a coughing fit. His shivering more pronounced, he barely felt a cloak being draped over him.

"Concentrate. It has not been long. I can remove the devices from you, but there will be great pain."

"Y-you think?" Daniel smiled at his own private joke.

"Yes, I do," the woman replied, not getting it at all. An awkward silence came over them, Daniel lying on his side, seeing only darkness, feeling a hand rubbing his back in gentle strokes as if to ease his pain, and the woman shifting slightly closer to him.

"What is your name?" Daniel asked quietly.

"My name?" The Tok'ra sounded startled by the question. "I have not used my name in a very long time. I had forgotten what it sounded like on friends' lips."

"My name is Daniel," the young man offered weakly, pointing to himself out of habit. He coughed, the talking straining his throat.

The Tok'ra was still rubbing his back, easing the heaving coughs racking his body. "I know that."

"Daniel Jackson," he added in a raspy voice.

The woman's hand stopped. "Not O'Neill?"

"No..." Daniel shifted a bit, wincing as his ribs protested. "Not O'Neill. We're not brothers."

"This O'Neill...he is in the cell down the hall?"

"Yes."

"But not the one we know of."

"He's with my double, the Dan O'Neill you know, back in my reality."

"The scribe has information with him."

"We know they have the information. We came here in hopes to try and help you contact some allies before we got captured. They're still on the other side." Daniel moaned softly as he felt what could only be electrical shock coursing up and down his back.

The Tok'ra woman rubbed his back once more. "Be still...it will pass."

"Oh God," he gasped, writhing as everything felt like it was set on fire. He could feel his body instinctively curling up to stave off the pain.

Fingers stroked his brow silently as he gulped air in, trying to even out his breathing, waiting for the pain to pass.

"Y-you..." Daniel tried to distract himself. "Y-you never mentioned your n-name." He stiffened; the pain began twisting in his chest. His legs kicked out in agony.

The woman hunched over. He could feel her hands on his shaking shoulders, stilling them as she shushed him to be silent.

"You may call me...Jolinar."

Daniel gasped. The Tok'ra mistook it as a sound of pain and gripped his shoulders more tightly.

"Jolinar of Malk-shur?"

The hands abruptly released. "You know of me?"

Biting his lip, this time out of nervousness, Daniel nodded. "I've met you…sort of."

"In your reality."

Daniel smiled weakly. "You're catching on very fa—God!" He jerked as pain rippled through his body like a shockwave, starting from his head, to the back of his eyes, streaking through his back, fading away at the tip of his toes. To his dismay, a whimper escaped his lips as he clutched the cloak in a feeble hope it would ease the pain. It didn't.

Something warm touched his lips, and he stiffened.

"Do not fear. It is a form of…stimulant."

"Neuar?"

The woman paused. "You surprise us each time. How do you know of this?"

"I've seen it before. The other…D-daniel...his brother had mentioned it helps push back the effects of the _r-re'klya_."

"It does." Daniel could feel that thin hand rubbing his arm now and he forced himself to concentrate on that up and down motion. The regular pattern almost lulled him to sleep. He jerked deliberately to stay awake and alert. "It will also ease the pain and let you rest."

"No."

The hand stopped.

"I can't sleep," Daniel protested. "You can't escape here carrying me around. I have to stay awake."

"You can barely stand," Jolinar pointed out, a hand gripping his right knee.

Daniel swallowed. "I can if I have to. And I have to."

The Tok'ra paused for a moment. Then, a bit of admiration seeped into her voice. "You are indeed a truly fascinating and most impressive species."

"Thank you." Daniel sighed, as he struggled to sit up. He tilted his head towards where he thought the door would be. "Are they here yet?"

"No." Jolinar pushed him back down, pulling the cloak around him tighter. "Rest. Gather your strength."

"You'll wake me when it's time to leave?" Daniel's hand grabbed for her wrist on his shoulder. It struck him how fragile, how dainty the wrist felt even in his weakening grip.

"Yes." The Tok'ra pulled her hand away, placing it over his. Gently, she moved it to tuck his arm around his own middle, and Daniel realized she was doing this as if she had done this all before. This was probably Dan's ally when he was trapped with Ra.

"You'll wake me when it's time to go?" he stressed, already feeling himself float away, the pain still a constant companion but exhaustion dulling it for now.

"You have my word, Dan-yel Jackson." She placed one hand on his shoulder, keeping him flat on the floor, the other was gently stroking his brow. It was hypnotic, drawing all his attention to her touch, the left right sweep across his forehead to temples, avoiding the re'klya, pulling him to almost a trance-like state. "Rest," Jolinar whispered, the alien tone gone and a richer accent emerged. "Gather your energy. Your journey has not ended."

Nodding wearily, Daniel focused on the hand, her voice sounding like something he hadn't heard in a long time, but he couldn't recall why. He let both the voice and hand lull him into an uneasy sleep, and as he sank into nothingness, he silently sent out a prayer to his friend.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

_Ra sat on his throne, surrounded by his children, garbed in gold and gems dug out with the blood of his slaves. Sitting there, eyes glowing with distaste, the pharaoh spoke in a language Jack had never heard spoken until Jackson had a few hours before._

_The colonel wondered what he might be saying, this man-child who perched himself on a throne of gold until he saw two boys appearing no older than Ra himself, carry an odd looking stretcher out. Jack's blood ran cold. It was the only explanation as to why the vast chamber suddenly dropped thirty degrees, why his spine seem to be racked with chills as he saw the dismantled nuclear bomb he had brought over to destroy this place._

_"You will watch this world crumble first."_

_Blinking, Jack looked up. The boy king was standing now, face a bit older, dressed in thick robes, but still glaring at him with those hateful eerie eyes. The man-child then beckoned his children to bring something out, his dark hand waving lazily as if he was asking for a glass of water. The young slaves were quick to comply and dragged out a body, depositing it right in front of him._

_"Daniel!" Jack scrambled over to the prone man. He reached out to flip him onto his back when Ra laughed._

_"Then you will watch the life seep away from your friend before I destroy your world."_

_The young man turned over, and Jack recoiled in horror at the sight of his friend's gouged out eyes._

"No!" Jack jerked awake in the cell, gasping for air. He stared at the filthy walls, momentarily confused as to his whereabouts since the crisscross patterns of the bars greeting him were unfamiliar.

Shaking his head, Jack wondered fuzzily where the hell he was. For a second, he could have sworn he heard Arabic being spoken, but as he focused, it turned out to be nothing more than the echo of his breathing. He started to rise when muscles stretched across lashes cut into his bare back, driving him back to his knees with a hiss. The pain was sharp, not debilitating, but acute enough to remind him where he got it from.

And he remembered. The screaming rang in his ears, and he got up in a shot.

Daniel.

_"Dan O'Neill was to be executed in six days."_

Daniel. They took Daniel. They took him and...

Jack swallowed. He could still hear Daniel's screams ringing in his ears as if they were right over him. "Daniel?" Jack called out. O'Neill felt around the cage door, framed by concrete-looking blocks he couldn't begin to scratch to make any damage, but he hoped that at least he might try to pick the lock. It would be his luck the snakeheads decided to use some sort of weird lock he couldn't pick. No hinges either.

_Not that I have anything to pick it with_, Jack thought, casting a look at his torn BDU's, his top gone, undershirt flung into a corner, leaving him only his pants.

"Whatever happened to old-fashioned locks?" Jack muttered. He rubbed at his shoulder, wincing at the pull of the whiplashes he vaguely remembered receiving. Abruptly, he banged his fist on the wall.

_"My brother is wanted by every system lord and general in my solar system right now, Colonel. Your Doctor Jackson would be walking right into a guillotine with a dotted line around his throat."_

His gut twisted into knots, his throat closing up as he could hear Daniel screaming over and over again. He'd been sure. So sure everything would be okay. But they hadn't even gotten to Ra yet before being tossed into the devil's cavern. He glanced around his prison.

The walls were not the gilded panels of Hathor's chamber. Dull, gray, with a freezing smoke coming out from the cracks. He spied his boots discarded by his feet. Stepping into the sodden footwear, he noticed even the shoelaces were gone, and the water from the pit had collected inside his shoes to a chilled puddle. Jack glared at the walls of his cell. They took everything. His pocket knife, shoelaces, even his damn watch. He checked his wrist and grunted. At least the bracelet was still entangled in his wrist. They probably tried to pry it off. He could see scratches in his skin where they must have tried to remove it.

Jack rubbed his face with his hands. They didn't put Daniel in here with him this time. God knew if he was even on this ship any more.

He could still hear Daniel screaming in his head.

Scowling, Jack thumped the wall again. It still didn't make him feel any better.

Walking over to the cell bars, making a face as his back pulled uncomfortably, he tried pulling at the diagonal bars. Nothing. They wouldn't budge.

_I suppose I can do the old play dead and jump the guards. Grab me a zat._ Jack recalled the hawk shaped helmets of the guards who came out from the wall and caught them unaware. Jack scowled. He pounded a fist into his hand. At least their armor was almost the same he had encountered on the first mission. While the limbs were protected with armor, garbed with the same sharp tipped gloves and metal boots, and their chests had plates to guard their heart, their sides were still exposed, flesh that could hurt with a well placed punch.

They were large, but they definitely had spots where Jack could take them down. He could take down one without too much difficulty. Hit the first guy, grab his weapon, use him as a shield and shoot the others before they could retaliate. And the ship was large enough to lurk in rooms. They wouldn't be able to find one lone human easily.

But then the next problem. Finding Daniel. Where was Daniel? And who was he with?

A chill went down his back that had nothing to do with the cold room. He could taste the bile in his mouth as he thought of how Hathor had literally pinned Daniel to the cushions. He was surprised, but mostly overwhelmingly relieved when Daniel head butted her finally.

But it was a tactic Jack knew could only be tried once. Hathor would know better next time.

"Damn it, why couldn't you stay dead in this reality?" Jack muttered as he waited by the cell door for a guard to come in.

Suddenly, a soft chime sounded. Someone was coming. Jack hid in the shadows of the cell, pressed close to the cage bars to see. The heavy door slid sideways, opening up to bright light that made him flinch, and a shadow stood in the center of the square patch of light.

"Cap? Yo, Captain…" The voice lowered, muttering curses as the door beeped and chimed before finally closing behind him. Dressed in a brown cloak, the figure paused as if counting the cells. Jack got to his feet, wincing as he forced his back to press close to the frigid walls within the shadows of the blocks that framed the cell door, to wait. He spied a hand snaking out of a cloak waving an odd black stick over his door, and it swung open. As soon as the person entered, Jack snaked an arm around his neck and jerked him in.

"Okay…I'm only going to ask this once before I break your neck," Jack hissed, tightening his grip as he spoke. "Where's man who was captured with me?"

The newcomer flailed a bit before sputtering. "John! Are you nuts? What the hell are you doing?"

The colonel dropped his arm, stunned when he heard the voice clearly.

"Kawalsky?"

The smaller man pulled away, yanked back his hood, revealing the chiseled face and short dark hair. Rubbing his throat, Kawalsky grimaced. "Great to see you too, Cap."

Jack stared at the man, a friend he had lost long ago, standing right there scowling back at him. "What? How—"

"Our contact told me you two were recaptured again," Kawalsky said, unaware of the scrutiny. He eyed the cell with a wince. "Nice, reminds me of home." The captain swung his rifle strap over his shoulder as he eyed his watch. "We didn't even know you guys escaped the first time!"

"Escaped?"

Kawalsky eyed him out of the corner of his eyes. "You okay there, John? You're looking a bit out of it. They…what did they do to you?"

The colonel shook himself out of his reverie. It struck him Kawalsky didn't realize he was not the Jack O'Neill of his reality. But he didn't want to exchange technobabble with him, he needed to find Daniel now so he just shrugged. Some things could be talked about later.

The captain eyed Jack's arms with a frown. "Where's your shirt?"

"Torn." Jack said flatly as he turned around, trying to find the shirt the guards took off before they gave him the taste of the whip. He heard the soldier suck in his breath as he saw the red marks.

"Shit," Kawalsky breathed. "They did that to you?"

Jack said nothing as he jerked his other arm through the shredded sleeve. Turning around so he could gather his thoughts, he cleared his throat.

"Where's Daniel?"

"We found him two cell blocks down," the captain replied. "But we've got to go now. That Goa'uld general is bound to be back soon."

"Did they…?" Jack hesitated to ask.

"What?"

That's right. Dan O'Neill already had his implanted. Jack tried to sound neutral. "Were his implants still—"

"Yeah." Kawalsky's voice was solemn. "I'm sorry, John."

The colonel closed his eyes briefly, his hands clenched to fists before he could contain himself. Jack literally heard his knuckles crack.

"Cap?"

"Let's go," Jack said curtly, turning around.

Kawalsky froze, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Jack up and down more carefully.

"Kawalsky?"

The rifle whipped out in front of Jack. The older man stilled.

"Very nice. I almost believed it for a moment there. But you got the stance and the hair all wrong here. Whoever you are." Kawalsky waved the rifle towards Jack. "Back away from me. Slowly."

"Kawalsky, are you out of your mind?" Jack snapped, raising his hands up.

"Maybe." The other man smiled tightly. He waved at Jack with his free hand. "But you're definitely not the Jonathan O'Neill I know." Eyes darkening, Kawalsky steadied his weapon. "So who the hell are you?"

"Jack O'Neill," Jack replied. "Colonel Jack O'Neill…of SGC."

"What the hell is an SGC?"

O'Neill eyed the soldier. "Stargate Command…in my reality…that is."

Kawalsky's eyes shrank to slits. "Say what?"

The colonel grimaced. _How the hell do I explain this?_ "Uh…in my reality, I said."

"Do you take me for some sort of idiot?"

"No." Jack sighed to himself. How did Daniel explain this to everyone when he went through the mirror? "Look, I don't know how to explain it, Kawalsky. But I come from a reality that's different from this. Ra is already dead in my world. Captain O'Neill came to our reality through a portal, and we thought we would help him."

"That sounds pretty and all." Kawalsky wasn't buying it. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear. Who. Are You?"

"Look!" Jack exploded. He waved his wrist in front of the soldier. "This is everything I've just told you!" The metal ring glimmered in the darkness.

Startled, Kawalsky took a step closer, and it was the opening Jack needed. With a quick jerk, he grabbed at the rifle barrel and wrapped his other arm around the man's throat in a half Nelson. Kawalsky snarled, whipping both hands up to reach behind him, but he couldn't reach far enough to do any damage. Jack grunted as the struggles sent them crashing to the wall, his back stinging with the chill biting at his skin.

"Okay, we're going for a little walk," Jack hissed, regretting having to do this. He slung the confiscated weapon over his shoulder, keeping an arm around Kawalsky. "Keep quiet. I don't want to break your neck. In my reality, we were pretty good friends." He half dragged the soldier out of the cell, giving the hallways a cursory glance before heading for the other cells.

Kawalsky mumbled his surprise, half expecting the man to be hollering for the guards, still thinking this was some elaborate trap when his captor stopped at the cell he'd left. He stiffened.

Reading the body posture, Jack studied the shut cell door. "Is this it?"

Kawalsky held his tongue. He felt the arm tighten further, threatening to completely cut off his oxygen. The soldier deliberately looked away from the door.

"I asked you if this is…never mind, you just answered my question, I guess," Jack muttered and pressed on the symbols at the square by the doorway.

Nothing.

"How did you get in before?" Jack asked in a low voice. He kept checking both sides of the corridor. No one was here so far.

Kawalsky said nothing.

"Look," Jack seethed. He didn't have time for this. "If I was one of the snakeheads, I would be hollering for the guards right now!" He banged at the panel, frustrated he couldn't get in. "What are the keys? You got in before!" Jack tried a few more, but he didn't even get a chirp from it. "Damn it!"

Kawalsky grunted as he was spun around. Jack stared right at him. "I don't have time to explain, but you have to believe me when I say I am not the enemy. What will it take to convince you?"

The other soldier glared at him silently, but let his dark eyes wander over to Jack's rifle before gluing his gaze back at Jack. Without hesitation, he took the rifle and handed it to Kawalsky with both hands.

Kawalsky stared at the rifle, then at Jack. Eyes widened as he took another look at Jack as if trying to find where a mask might be, where the illusion began, but when he saw nothing but desperation in Jack's eyes, he slowly accepted the rifle.

Then he turned around and punched the two keys.

The cell door slid open, and he quickly slipped inside with Kawalsky. He ran down the row of empty cells, opened his mouth to call out to Daniel when he skidded to a stop.

A woman dressed in a semi-transparent robe and beaded sash dress stiffened at his arrival. Her eyes flashed with defiance. Jack recognized yet another ghost.

Sha're.

"Oh my God," Jack breathed. Kawalsky stared at Jack with confusion.

Sha're tilted her head at the words. "You are the one this Dan-yel said was from the other world."

Jack shook himself out of his shock. "Dan? Daniel? Where is he?" Ignoring Kawalsky, Jack dropped beside to the figure on the floor and swore softly as he saw the devices on his friend's temples.

"Dammit."

"Jolinar, just what the hell is going on?" Kawalsky finally found the words to speak. Jack whipped up his head in shock.

"You're Jolinar?" Jack stared at the dark, exotic face. "You're not Sha—"

"J-jack?"

The older man looked down and saw Daniel stirring.

"Hold still, Daniel." Jack slipped his hands under his friend's back and helped him sit up. He could feel the tremors racking the body.

"Jolinar…" Kawalsky was still standing there.

"They are not who we think they are," Jolinar/Sha're replied, the dual voice an eerie reminder to Jack of the woman he knew on his world.

"Well, obviously," Kawalsky said sarcastically and waved towards Jack. "He said he came from another…dimension or something."

"It's true." Daniel's eyes fluttered open, and Jack looked away, hating the blank stare on his friend's face. "We came to help…"

"Daniel, hold still…just relax," Jack soothed as his friend twitched, crying out softly in pain.

"H-hurts…Jack…God…it hurts…"

"I know. We're getting out of here. I'll get you home. Doc can get those things out of you," Jack lied desperately, his hand running up and down Daniel's back. He looked at Jolinar. "Are we still orbiting P9H-521?"

"P9 what?" Kawalsky, deciding Jack was harmless or at least that it wasn't a trap, approached him. "You mean the planet you guys were captured from?"

Jack nodded impatiently.

"No," Jolinar said in a sad voice. "You're above Tau'ri right now. What remains of Earth."

"Shit," Jack whispered. "I have to get back. I have to use your Stargate—"

"We don't have one. Ra destroyed the one in Cheyenne Mountain," Kawalsky replied in a stiff voice.

"Nice try, Charlie, but I know about the one in Antarctica," the colonel replied. At the two startled faces, he went on in a harsh voice. "Like I've been telling you before and what he's been trying to say, we're not from your reality. Your O'Neill and Daniel O'Neill are with us right now. We were trying to get here with them but we got captured by that…that…bitch!" Jack seethed.

Daniel moaned softly. He struggled to sit up straighter but slumped back into Jack's arms, exhausted. Kawalsky automatically knelt, concern clearly written over his face.

"So…he's not Dan?" Kawalsky asked in a hushed voice. "I mean, you guys look, well…he, at least…"

"Jack." Daniel's hand went up, groping around for his friend. Jack caught the hand easily and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Here."

"We can't stay. The others…we have to tell the others…"

"We got separated from our team and your guys." Jack explained. He eyed Daniel worriedly. "I need to get him back. Get those…things off him."

"It will be too late by then," Jolinar said tonelessly. Daniel stiffened noticeably in Jack's hold.

Unwilling to believe it, Jack went on. "We've got a medical facility…we can get them removed."

"They have already begun linking with his nervous system." Jolinar brushed a hand along Daniel's hip. "He can not walk. I offered the neuar to ease his pain to slow it down but he refused."

"I have to stay awake," Daniel protested feebly. "You guys can't carry me out of here. I'll slow you down. Jack—"

"_No_." Jack knew what he was going to say. He could hear it in the young man's voice.

"J-jack…"

"_No_!" the colonel cut in harshly. "You hear me? No. I'm not leaving you behind. Don't even waste your breath with this discussion!"

"We need to take them out now."

Jack looked up with a start. "What?"

Silently, Kawalsky pulled a hunting knife out of its sheath strapped to his hip. Jack blanched.

"What? Are you crazy? You can't expect me to—"

"Not you. Me." Jolinar took the knife, and it struck Jack how cold her face was as she eyed the silver devices on Daniel's head. Instinctively, Jack drew his teammate closer.

"No."

"There isn't any time." The Tok'ra tried to push Jack's hands away. "We must do it now otherwise it will be too late. He will be too weak later on to survive the removal."

"I said no!" Jack hissed. "We have to leave. I'll take him back and—"

"Watch him slowly decay from the man he once was," Jolinar finished for him.

Jack glared at her.

"I've done this before. I regret I wasn't able to do the same for Daniel O'Neill. It was too late by the time word reached me of his capture." She caressed the skin around the devices. "But it isn't for him."

Kawalsky looked around nervously. "Look. You got a choice. We can get this over with and get out of here or argue about this until the next shift comes in!"

"Do it."

Jack gaped at his friend. "Daniel-"

"I'd r-rather take the chance while I still h-have it." Daniel turned towards the Tok'ra's voice. "You'll wake me when it's done? If I pass out?"

"I will."

Jack closed his eyes briefly. He could hear Daniel's hitched breathing as the young man struggled to stay awake. Squeezing Daniel's hand, Jack slowly nodded.

"All right…what do you want me to do?"


	21. Chapter 20

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

The tape rewound and played out once more. The colonel whipping around to see the Stargate light up, the wall wavering and the image distorting. Daniel falling to the ground before he could reach the wall. And finally, the image disappearing, the last thing she saw was the two men staring at the wall as Jaffa surrounded them.

"Damn," Carter muttered with a frown.

Step on the DHD, and the portal is activated. Step off, and it closes, but how did the mirror reset to another reality?

Frustrated, Sam reached out for her cup of coffee that was somewhere on the cluttered lab table. She jumped when she felt someone placing a cup in her outstretched hand. "Janet!" Sam exclaimed as she saw the sober doctor leaning against the table next to her. "When did you come in?"

"Just before, after you stopped rewinding the video." Janet stared at the frozen image of the blank wall. "Find anything yet?"

Sam glumly shook her head. Sam couldn't help but blurt out, "It's been almost a day, and I haven't found anything!"

"Like you said, it's only been a day." Janet sipped her own cup of coffee and took a deep whiff of the steam wafting out of her cup.

Sam paused, reading a strange look on Fraiser's face. "Janet?"

"Do you think...she's over there with them?" Janet asked softly.

Sam frowned. "Who?"

At first, Janet didn't look like she wanted to say it. But then she took a deep breath. "Hathor. Me."

"You're not Hathor," Carter reminded her.

"Not in this reality. But over there—"

"Is someone else who is Hathor," Sam finished firmly. She turned back towards the monitor. "There is a difference."

Sam wearily started the video again, randomly enlarging certain images for a better view.

"That doesn't make me feel any better," Janet muttered.

Sam glanced at the doctor's reflection off her screen, noting the slumped shoulders. "This really bothers you, doesn't it?"

"That I'm Hathor?"

"You're _not_ Hathor," Sam stressed as she jiggled the controls. She sighed.

Janet studied the slumped posture. She could tell the major was upset, and she didn't blame her.

"They may be able to return back to us."

Sam nodded. "They may, but I'd rather not wait." She eyed the stilled image of Jack and Daniel standing in front of the mirror. "I have to figure this out!" It frustrated her to no end that the answer wasn't immediately there for her to grab and shape into something she could use. She gestured at the monitor. "We figured out the basic controls of the portal, but it never occurred to us that it worked along the lines of the quantum mirror."

"Which was destroyed," Janet added softly.

"So we can't use what we're familiar with," Sam agreed glumly. She flipped through the reams of computer paper. "It wasn't an accident. Something was done on their side." Carter leaned back in her chair. "And I don't know what it was."

Janet patted her friend on the shoulder. "You look beat. I suggest you take a break. It'll give you a fresher perspective."

"I'm not tired," Sam said listlessly as she reached for the remote, but Janet beat her to it, taking the controls out of her reach.

"Yes, you are. Doctor's orders."

Sam glared at her silently. Janet folded her arms in front of her.

"If your positions were reversed, I'd be telling Daniel the same thing. They wouldn't want you to exhaust your energy doing this and have none left for the rescue."

"Our positions aren't reversed," Sam said tightly. "I'm here and they're..." She trailed off and fell silent.

Janet leaned forward, concerned. "Sam?"

"Positions..." Glancing over to the monitor, Sam tapped her chin with a finger.

"Sam?"

"We could try and..." Carter scribbled something down on a page. Nodding to herself, Sam forgot all about Janet.

"I think I know a way to find out what happened," Sam announced as she waved the ejected tape at Janet. "Thanks for the idea." With that, she started to leave the room.

"What idea? And thanks for what?" Janet repeated, exasperated. Sometimes, Sam could be just as focused and infuriating as the two missing men.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

"Ready?" Jack asked, keeping his voice calm. Daniel nodded slowly, tensing when he felt the cold tip of the blade press against his face. He couldn't stop himself from shrinking back.

"Damn it, this isn't going to work!" Jack was saying above him. Daniel had never heard that harsh tone in his friend's voice before. Daniel tilted his head up towards the colonel, inquiring, and felt a hand press down on his forehead.

"Lie still." Jolinar's soft voice floated around him, fading in and out as his hearing went haywire due to the devices. He shifted nervously. No matter how much he reminded himself she was Tok'ra, the eerie dual voice was giving him an uneasy feeling. As if aware of this, the Tok'ra's voice slipped to a normal tone, the smooth words soft and soothing. "No matter what…you can not move. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Daniel murmured, fidgeting a little nevertheless as his legs tingled uncomfortably like they were falling asleep. As he turned his head to figure out where Jack was, he felt something press against his lips.

"Bite down on this," Kawalsky said gruffly. "Scream all you want. Just…just don't bite out your tongue in the process, you hear?"

Daniel listened to Jack's breathing quicken, and he knew his friend was having second thoughts. So before Jack could change his mind and abort the procedure, Daniel obediently opened his mouth and bit down on what felt like a belt.

"I'm slipping the tip under the main device." Daniel took a deep breath and let the confidence lull him to a state of lethargy. He felt Jack's grip on his shoulders tightening, and he instinctively bit down harder on the belt, imagining the knife must be inches from his face. "I'm going to push it up and then make a small cut next to the wound. This is in case the device has branched out already and has become twisted. I need the room to maneu—"

"Just do it!" The colonel's voice snapped out like a whip. Automatically, Daniel opened his eyes in alarm but saw only darkness. He felt Jack's hand on his hair again. "Sorry. Just relax."

"Mm," Daniel could only say. He tensed when he felt the blade slip in between the device and his skin. Already, the throbbing in his head increased. He took another long breath. There. The pain was nothing. It was in the back of his mind.

"I'm going to make the cut now."

Daniel forced himself not to squeeze his eyes tighter as he felt the sharp edge press down harder on his flesh. A thin line of heat pierced him around the area, and he made a sound.

"Shh." Jack was grabbing his hand now, and Daniel was vaguely aware of someone holding on to his ankles. "That was it. Just a small cut. That wasn't so bad, Danny."

_Uh oh_, Daniel thought fuzzily. _He called me Danny. He must be worried. But that was it, wasn't it? _

"I'm going to pull it out now." For some reason, Jolinar's voice shook. He felt her fingers brush against his cheek, and it felt gentle to him. When the fingers pulled back, he felt oddly bereft. "Remember, Dan-yel. Be still." Daniel frowned at the pronunciation of his name, but before he could question it, he felt the device move.

_Pain!_

"Ah!" Daniel gasped around the belt as the device slowly slipped out. Suddenly, it felt like his body was in flames, scorching every nerve, his insides squeezing painfully with cramps. He jerked his head to stop the growing sensation of being burned alive, his legs kicking. Jack swore as he struggled to clamp his hands down harder on the shoulders, pinning Daniel to the freezing floor. Jolinar flinched as Daniel's hands flailed and slapped her in the face.

"Hold him still!" she snapped, her hand grabbing one wrist, the other still hovering over the device. Jolinar waited until Kawalsky secured the young man's ankles once more. Jack pressed down harder, keeping Daniel flat on the ground. He muttered an apology when his friend cried out.

_Hot red hot…stinging…cutting, digging, hot...I'm burning…ripping...ripping...can't think...can't think...hurthurthurt...God it hurts…stop…please stop…_

Jolinar pulled it out a bit more, her eyes narrowing when she saw the hairlike fibers branching out from the main shaft connected to the disc. The devices were already trying to assimilate his nervous system. She paused, examining the fibers before nodding to herself and continued to extract the device.

"Just pull it out!" Jack said harshly as Daniel wailed, muffled behind the belt he, by some miracle, was still biting down on. "What the hell are you doing?"

"She can't!" Kawalsky answered for her. His eyes burned with the urgency of the operation. "She leaves too many of those fibers in him, and he's a vegetable!"

"God, why the hell did I let you convince me?" Jack muttered. Daniel didn't answer, though. He bucked against the hands, legs stubbornly trying to kick free. Screaming in pain, wondering why no one would help him make the agony stop, Daniel let out a loud, strangled cry, and the folded up belt strap fell out.

"Put it back before he bites his own tongue and finishes what the Goa'uld started!" Jolinar's voice was sharp as she concentrated on pulling the rest out.

_Stop! Stop! Hurts…no more…no more! Jack! Someone! Stop it! Stop it!_

Jack grabbed the belt with one hand still on Daniel's shoulder and tried to put it back in when the crazed man, freed, arched his back, breaking from their grasp. Jolinar gasped, her hands jerking back, a finger tinged with blood.

"You okay?" Kawalsky demanded as he fought to keep their charge still. Jack grabbed Daniel from behind, sitting him up until he was against him. Jack wrapped his arms across a heaving chest, muttering an apology to Daniel's senseless ears as he pinned him down. The young man thrashed against his grip.

"It broke." Jolinar's eyes were wide as she scrambled closer. She tilted Daniel's head to the side and examined the wound. "I can still see the shaft. I can still pull the rest free. There isn't much left. Hold him still!"

"I'm trying!" Jack grated out. He watched with a sickening lurch of his stomach as Kawalsky jammed the belt back in Daniel's mouth while sitting on his ankles to prevent movement. "Come on, Daniel. Just a bit more."

Daniel whimpered. He could vaguely hear Jack talking to him, over and over again. But the buzzing that had started since this began grew to a shrieking crescendo and he tried so hard. God, he tried so very hard not to open his mouth and join the noise with his own cracked voice.

"Just a bit more. Keep him still."

Someone was saying it was almost over. That the pain would be gone, but he couldn't tell if they told him the time.

It felt like forever, stretching, binding, and twisting him from the inside as he burned from his head, scorching a fiery line down to his toes.

_Someone stop this! Please! Someone…Jack…Jack…_

"Shh…it's almost out…shh…"

Daniel wanted to obey; he forced himself to concentrate on just biting down on the belt. He was supposed to bite down, keep on biting down, because someone said it was very important. For the life of him, Daniel couldn't remember why.

And then suddenly, everything stopped.

Jack paled when he saw the body unexpectedly still, the head sagging back against the crook of his elbow. He pressed two fingers down on Daniel's throat and nearly folded over in relief when he felt the fast thumping beat of his pulse.

"T-there." Even Jolinar looked shaken. "And now it is up to him."

"What?" Jack's head snapped up. "I thought you said this would be the end of it!"

Reaching over, she brushed against the remaining device on the left side of Daniel's face. At the touch, it fell down, clinking like glass as it struck the floor. Quietly, she gathered the pieces and tossed them into a small velvet pouch dangling from her robe's belt.

"His body had begun its reliance on the _re'klya_. Without it, his systems have lost their guide. He needs to regain control."

"But how long will that take?" Jack asked, his hands gripping Daniel's shoulders tightly.

Kawalsky's voice was gruff when he answered the question instead of Jolinar. "Could be a day or two. He only had it for a short time, I take it?"

"A little over a day," Jack calculated quickly. "From the time we were orbiting that planet, 'til they got here."

"He's young and strong. He'll survive," Sha're murmured, the glow fading away from her eyes. Her faint Abydonian accent was evident now as she whispered reassurances into Daniel's ears. "We must leave. Something is wrong. The general only visits her once a day for reports, but he has been communicating to his allies on the shel-m'ka orb. When the transmission is over, he will cycle the guards around the ship. We must leave."

Daniel moaned softly, twitching a bit at the voices. Sha're drew out a glass vial from the folds of her robe and pressed it close to his lips, one hand bracing the back of his head, lifting him up. He mumbled, turning his head with a frown at the unfamiliar taste, but Kawalsky pressed his hand against his cheek, tilting the head back towards the tube.

"Neuar," the Tok'ra woman explained. Jack nodded, recognizing the name. "He will sleep." She poured the semi-translucent blue liquid down Daniel's mouth. Gently, she stroked his curved throat, encouraging him to swallow. He stirred a bit, brow furrowing, then with a barely audible sigh, slumped further into Jack's embrace.

"He wanted to stay awake. I told him you'd wake him," Kawalsky pointed out.

"I lied." Sha're stood and straightened her robes, adjusting her jewelry. "Come. We can leave through the corridors. Do you have an address we can use?"

Kawalsky whipped out a stone tablet which Jack recognized as a twin to the one John O'Neill carried. He noticed Jack's interest in the item. "It's…sort of a recorder." Kawalsky nodded towards Sha're. "She swiped it off Jermak."

"I know," Jack nodded as well. "Dan O'Neill had one just like it-"

"Machello's?" Jolinar's voice slipped over Sha're's without warning, making Jack jump. Kawalsky, however, wasn't taken off guard, but he stared at Jack instead.

"How many tablets?" the captain asked anxiously.

"Only one."

"The one that was on the ship before they escaped," Jolinar said regretfully. "I slipped Captain O'Neill the location of the device Machello gave me, but I wasn't able to return to find out where the second one was or the key." Her eyes glowed as she gazed back at Jack, looking very sad. "They executed him before I could find reason to leave Jermak's side. But at least young Dan-yel was spared."

"We'd better go," Kawalsky murmured, reminding them. He studied Daniel slumped against Jack. "Need help with him?"

"No, I've got it," Jack grated out as he lifted Daniel to his feet. He tried to bend down, wrapped an arm under Jackson's knees when he stiffened, his back screaming about the unwise move.

Kawalsky stepped forward. "Look, he's definitely not Dan's weight. I'll take one side, okay?"

"Fine," Jack grumbled, scowling as his back still burned with the effort despite Kawalsky's assistance.

"Both of you are too damn stubborn," Kawalsky grumbled. "Can never admit you need help." He didn't see the dirty look Jack gave him. Taking half of the weight, the soldier gasped. "Geez! What the hell does he eat in your reality? Dan never weighed this much!"

Jack shot him a funny look at the comment but shrugged it away as he concentrated on keeping Daniel upright on his side. "The usual. Candy bars. Coffee. You know, breakfast of champions."

"Great, they're both junk food addicts," the other soldier groaned. Grunting, Kawalsky wrapped one arm around Daniel's waist, draping a limp left arm around his shoulder. Daniel's head rolled to the side against Jack's shoulder, but the colonel didn't have the heart to push it away.

"We'd better scoot before your lovey dovey Jermak realizes you got his stuff," Kawalsky said urgently. "Last thing you need is to have your boyfriend get pissed at you, Jolinar."

The Tok'ra shrugged, not at all bothered by the possibility. "Let us go before they discover your escape."

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

"That does it for the east end," one of the soldiers announced, snapping shut a pouch with his meter inside. Another soldier chimed out the same.

Ferretti leaned against the cluster of statues off to the side and sighed, watching the uniforms go left and right as they scanned every inch of the portal. They'd even resorted to bringing over a crane to raise their reach to the top.

"Major, I'm going to activate the portal again!" Another soldier whose name he couldn't remember right now called out from the DHD platform.

Ferretti stood up straighter. "Okay, ladies. You heard the man. Everyone back away." He waved them off, and the crew stepped back except for one. "Captain O'Neill? That includes you."

John tore his gaze away from the portal, the polished surface showing his tired face. He looked so old. He _felt_ old.

"Captain?" Ferretti came up from behind him. "We've got to send another probe through and see if we can get readings on that end.

John stepped back a few feet and watched as the surface of the portal flickered after someone behind him stepped on the DHD coverstone. It settled into the view of the reality on the other side. The scene of a field of grass, the lone DHD platform greeted the crew in the chamber on the other side.

"Probe going through!" Someone called out. Ferretti nodded listlessly.

"I hate this part," the major muttered to John as the probe rolled through, and the wall vanished on contact. It was a sunny place, but the light didn't stretch past the portal's barrier into the chamber. It was still dark on his side, lit by the electric lanterns and spotlights around the place.

"Great," John grumbled. "Trees. Lots of trees." He watched as the probe fled the middle boundary, and the wall snapped back up again.

"Wish it gave us some warning before it did that," Ferretti muttered as some of the techs with them came forward with their readers again. The chamber was flooded with the sounds of computers, meters, and the lightning still flashing above them.

"There's no chamber over there," John muttered. "The Stargate is gone, too."

"Different reality," Ferretti shrugged. He watched as the probe reached the DHD and painstakingly got on the coverstone. "Here we go. Everyone still recording over there?" A few voices answered back affirmative.

Nothing.

"I'm getting no reaction from the portal!" A voice called out. A few others murmured the same.

"Think the turn on device is busted?" Ferretti asked John who shook his head.

"Sorry, I wouldn't know. It doesn't say Doctor anywhere on my uniform," John grumbled as he kept his eyes on the device. "What is it going to do now?"

Tilting his cap, scratching the back of his head, Ferretti sighed. "I think it's programmed to turn back, no matter what happens."

Sure enough, the probe spun around, tracks moving, and it got off the platform. Slowly, it came towards them again.

John stared at the machine rolling at them, then at the reality before them. It was so different from his or from this one he was presently in. No Stargate, no massive building. The planet looked peaceful. The blowing wind sounded gentle. Briefly, he thought it wouldn't be so bad to stay there. Just walk over. It looked so easy. Just walk to the wall and take a step towards freedom and away from danger. He could bring Dan and they—

He stopped. Dan would never go for it. He knew his younger brother would never agree to it, to escaping somewhere else no matter how appealing it appeared. And he could imagine how life would be, staying on the other side, his brother hating him until the day he died.

John blinked, surprised to see his vision blurring. He pretended to cough, grabbing for a handkerchief he'd found in one of the many pockets of the flak jacket. While everyone was still glued to the approaching probe, he angrily swiped a corner of the cloth at his eyes, wiping away the traitorous tears brimming there.

"Ah shit!" Ferretti swore softly.

Looking up, John was surprised to see the probe at the wall. But still on the other side. Like a plate of glass, it stopped the probe from passing through, the portal not disappearing like before to let it by. The probe, only programmed to go and leave, kept spinning its wheels, trying to go. Finally, its frantic, useless movements, caused the probe to tilt, and it fell back, the tracks still moving up in the air as it landed on its rounded back.

"Well, there goes a piece of expensive equipment," Ferretti muttered.

"We got incoming!" A sharp voice rang out just as the first chevron lit up behind them.

Spinning around, John yanked out his sidearm from his hip holster as the others ducked behind the DHD, the statues, waiting for the newcomer.

"Hold your fire until we see who it is!" Ferretti ordered as he and John hid behind a cluster of statues next to the portal.

"Seventh symbol is activated!" John heard someone call out.

The gush of light spinning out in a vertical column was bright, illuminating the chamber with its sparkling glow. John could see everyone getting ready, guns pointed at the general direction—

"Don't shoot!" Carter's voice echoed out into the chamber. As she fully appeared before them with two other soldiers appearing behind her, Siler and Brolley, everyone relaxed.

"Major Carter!" Ferretti greeted as he emerged from his hideout.

"What have you got so far?" Sam asked in a breathless voice as she half jogged over to them. Siler and Brolley gave a half-awed glance at the portal before joining up with the rest of the crew to collaborate. She nodded towards John, who grunted in return. "Have the readings changed? Did you send the probe through yet?"

Ferretti wordlessly pointed behind him. Sam leaned to the side, looking around him, and her eyebrow went up at the sight of the probe on its back, tracks still moving in motion.

"We figured the DHD coverstone was busted," Ferretti explained. "It got on, but the portal didn't react. Then when it came back, it got the brick wall instead."

"So it doesn't matter if we have our portal activated, you need to turn it on on your side to get through from there," Sam murmured. She looked at John. "So say for instance we were to go over to that reality, you wouldn't have been able to return."

John shrugged, pretending it didn't bother him. "Doesn't matter." He gestured towards the portal. "Ain't my reality anyway." He didn't turn around to look at it again.

"You didn't need to come over to get our report, Carter," Ferretti interjected, puzzled.

Sam shook her head. She waved a tape in her hands. "No. I wanted to try something. To see if we can figure out what happened exactly." She motioned towards the rest of the crew. "I need a few guys to try this out."

"What are you going to do exactly?" John wanted to know. The major looked charged, brimming with energy, and he felt a little hopeful.

"We're going to reenact what Colonel O'Neill and Daniel did on their side based on the video we recorded. We may be able to mimic their actions and create the same effect as they did." She motioned to Brolley. The young soldier came over, gave John a funny look, before turning his attention to Sam.

John mentally sighed. It was beginning to annoy him.

"Set up the video and call out to us what they do." Sam instructed, handing Simmons the tape. "We'll act it out, and hopefully, we'll come upon the same method they used to switch realities." She glanced back at John and Ferretti. "Ferretti, you want to play the role of Daniel? You're almost the right height and weight for it."

"I always wanted to be an actor," Ferretti drawled, tipping back his head.

"Yeah, a comedic one!" someone called out. A few stray chuckles could be heard.

"Who said that?" Ferretti pretended to glare, but he couldn't tell if it came from his men or the techs milling about. Snorting, he gave a thumbs up to Sam.

Sam looked at John. "I need to know every factor that might have caused this. Speed, actions, weight, height. I'm sorry to ask this, but could you play—"

"The colonel's part?" John cut in. He looked at the mirrored wall over his shoulder before shrugging. "Seems oddly fitting," he murmured. "You can include me in as well."

"Great," Sam rounded her shoulders. She could feel her weariness fading away from her posture as she grew hopeful that this would work. "We need to duplicate the exact same conditions including how many lights were there and rovers. Any extra rovers we had will have to go back." She paused, taking a deep breath and glanced over to John. "If this works, Captain O'Neill, we can go back."

"Go back," John said in a flat voice. "Looking forward to it, Major." He took one last look at the peaceful surroundings on the other side and watched them disappear as the soldier on the platform stepped off, deactivating the portal.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

The light colored head shifted a bit, pressing into Jack's chest. The colonel rolled his shoulder until the head tilted back to rest against his forearm. He eyed the Tok'ra woman as she checked the adjoining hallways. They were crouched in a dark room, a blade crammed at the edges to keep the door open a crack.

Occasionally, Jack saw a few humans, garbed in brown, ratty looking robes, walking by bound to a single chain and dragged through the hallway. He saw Kawalsky tense as if wanting to lunge forward, but the captain wisely opted to keep his distance, scowling at the slaves' passing shadows instead.

Kawalsky looked over his shoulder at Jack. "Want me to carry him instead?" Kawalsky asked in a quiet voice, nodding towards the still unconscious Daniel. "Might be faster than dragging him between the both of us. Your back must be killing you."

Jack shook his head. "Nah, you two seem to know your way around here better than me. Concentrate on that."

Daniel stirred a bit, murmuring in his sleep. To Jack's surprise, Kawalsky reached over and pulled the collars of the jacket he'd draped over him a little tighter.

"Thanks," Jack whispered.

"Sh."

The two soldiers tensed as Jolinar waved them to be quiet. Jack held Daniel closer to him, Kawalsky's hand clapped over the young man's mouth to keep him silent. They watched as shadows drifted across the slit by the doorway as Jaffa passed them. Jack's hands inadvertently tightened around his friend.

As the last of the soldiers disappeared, Jolinar opened the door wider and took a look outside. She nodded curtly and motioned them to follow her after a few seconds. She swayed her hips provocatively in case anyone came by and thought it strange that Jermak's consort was in the lower levels.

Unused to seeing the woman this way, images of her holding Daniel's arm lovingly flashing in his mind, Jack stared at her back before getting up. He was sort of glad Daniel couldn't see her. Not when his wife was gone in his reality. Not to see her like this, dressed like the Go'uald queen Amonet.

Slowly, Jack matched Kawalsky's pace, ignoring the twinges in his back and went after her. They settled Daniel down on the floor, and Jack crept up to the corner.

Kawalsky handed him a small mirror. Jack stared at it for a moment, wishing he had his extendible rod. The piece he was handed was far too big to use and could be too easily sighted. Nevertheless, he took it and carefully angled it into the next hallway.

The Stargate room was guarded.

"Damn," Kawalsky muttered. He glared at the lone guard standing by the doorway reflected in the glass. He sat back on his heels after peering over Jack's shoulder at the mirror.

Jack nodded towards the door in front of them, and the others agreed. They ducked inside a room across the corner, again with a knife keeping the door open a crack. Almost immediately, Kawalsky was perched by the door, holding onto his knife.

Jack stared at the blade for a moment, recognizing it as the same one they'd used on Daniel. Jack glanced down at Daniel pressed up against the wall and positioned between them as they huddled near the door. Absently, he readjusted the jacket once more, feeling his friend stir under his administrations. He frowned at the sight of lines of pain crinkling around Daniel's eyes and wondered if they meant the neuar was no longer working. He opened his mouth to ask Jolinar when Kawalsky sat back, letting Jolinar take a look at the door.

"I thought Jermak was a stupid snakehead. He's never posted guards before." Kawalsky scowled, not liking the sudden change in routine.

"He never had Ra come to his battleship," Jolinar returned. "Jermak is worried. If his alliance with Hathor were to be discovered before he can move on their plans, he would fail. Ra would have his Goa'uld and destroy his host body before he could make his attempt to take Tau'ri as his own."

"Excuse me, and that's bad?" Jack hissed.

"We want them to try," Kawalsky answered in a low voice although his face didn't look like he had originally agreed to that plan. "When he and Ra start fighting, the factions would be divided. We come in, kill Ra—"

"And I kill Jermak," Sha're's voice came forward and finished grimly. She lifted her hand, a wide band bracelet glittered around her wrist. "With the gift he gave me." She smiled tightly at the irony. "He did not want others to touch his favorite consort." With that, a thick needle, the size of her finger, shot out of the curved metal like a striking cobra.

"And we're left with two very nice battleships to defend us from his allies who may come in retaliation," Kawalsky added.

"Sweet," Jack muttered, a bit unnerved to see her dark smile over the discussion of killing. Shaking his head, Jack eyed the corner again. "But first…we have to get out of here."

Jolinar returned, her eyes glowing briefly to signal her possession. "Yes. We need to know when Ra will arrive. Dan O'Neill—"

"We know what he knows," Jack cut in. He looked down at Daniel. "Well then, keeping us alive would be important now, wouldn't it?"

"You sure you're from an alternate reality?" Kawalsky dryly joked. "'Cause you sound like the old Captain O'Neill to me."

"I'm a colonel," Jack grumbled.

"Joy. Should I be saluting?"

"Quiet!" Jolinar exasperated. "I will distract them. Come in when I give you the signal." She got up, slipped out of the room and checked the hallway. She smoothly crossed the hallway, calling to the guard in a sharp, commanding voice. The guard, recognizing Jermak's consort, straightened immediately to attention.

"I don't care what their name Tok'ra translates to," Kawalsky muttered. "Still gives me the creeps when she does that."

Jack eyed the pair down the hallway and winced as he watched Jolinar/Sha're run a hand up the armor, tracing the contours of the guard's chest, smiling at him demurely. He winced, recalling a different Sha're who'd hidden behind the curtains when they arrived until Daniel called her to come forward.

But now, all he saw was a woman, a woman who had aged more than her youthful face portrayed, skin pale from being away from the harsh sun, hair sleek and shiny as if brushed carefully every day. She was even more beautiful than when Jack had seen her, and he suspected it was a deliberate appearance, designed to manipulate, to allure. The thought of Sha're doing such things made Jack squirm. He glanced down at Daniel, checking to see if his friend was still unconscious. He couldn't help but wish Daniel would never have a chance to see this side of his wife.

The guard standing by the Stargate chamber fidgeted, a mixture of awkwardness and surprise showing on his face at the attention by the Goa'uld general's favorite mate. She whispered something, and the guard leaned forward, his lips partly open. As he came closer to her, he stiffened. Sha're pulled him to her, and the guard jerked once more.

"What the?" Jack muttered as Kawalsky rose. The captain eyed the hallway, catching Jolinar's nod, signaling it was okay to go. Jack grimaced, trying to haul Daniel up. Muttering an apology, he quit trying to balance Daniel between them and just hoisted him onto his shoulder in a classic fireman's carry.

Jack followed behind the captain, Daniel balanced carefully over his shoulder. Every so often, Daniel's limp arms dangled with movement, banging into Jack's back. The colonel gritted his teeth and hurried the pace. As he got to the door leading to the Stargate chamber, he caught sight of the Tok'ra's weapon retracting, its tip dipped in red.

"There." There was no regret in her tone. "It is done." She watched without emotion as Kawalsky propped the Jaffa up like he was standing guard, carefully positioning the dead guard's staff weapon next to him, using it as a lever to keep him upright.

When it looked like the guard was going to stay put, Kawalsky nodded. She pressed symbols on the wall adjacent to the chamber, and the door slid open. They entered quickly, Sha're first and Kawalsky guarding the rear. Jack gingerly set Daniel down on the floor, hating the fact he was wheezing. His back was killing him.

Abruptly, the woman turned around, pulled out a weapon from within her robes and fired at the eye symbol by the door. A blue bolt of energy danced across the golden walls before fading.

"Shit! What the hell was that?" the captain exclaimed as he watched it scorch the panel.

Jack smiled at the familiar sight. "A zat." He shrugged at Sha're's puzzled look. "We've encountered those before."

"We could use some," the other soldier muttered. He studied the three-fold weapon in her hands. "They'd help a whole lot."

Sha're waved towards the DHD.

"I got the symbols," Kawalsky called, pulling out the stone tablet again. He waved a stone over it, and the coordinates realigned themselves.

"That's not it." Jolinar's voice emerged once more. "That is Chulak. Ra gave that to another system lord during their treaties. It would do you no good to go there. It is a virtual wasteland by now."

"What?" Jack exclaimed.

Jolinar looked at him funny.

"Nothing. Never mind." Jack waved his hand, mind reeling at the revelation. _So does that mean there's no Teal'c in this reality? Bet the big guy would be surprised to hear that piece of news. _The colonel eyed the Stargate. "So we're going to your base?"

"You need to head for another coordinate first in case they follow. From there, you can safely dial for Tau'ri." The Tok'ra eyed the door.

"You're not coming with us?"

"I must remain by Jermak's side so that I may strike when it is time," Jolinar replied. "I am the only one who can get close enough for the kill."

Suddenly, there was shouting outside. Everyone spun around towards the sealed door.

"Shit!" The captain frantically waved the stone over his tablet and more symbols appeared. Jack watched the door as it shook. He eyed the pair, fists bunched as they tried more sets of symbols without any success. The pounding had stopped, the noise gone. It was strangely quiet outside. Jack flexed his fingers, wishing he had his rifle or a zat of his own.

"That's not it either!" Jolinar snapped, getting impatient as she too worried about the silence behind the door.

The soldier muttered again, waving the stone once more. "Piece of Go'uald crap. Why the hell has he got symbols here if they're no good?" Jolinar didn't answer, watching intently at each set of addresses until she saw one set that would work.

"Yes. This set is good. It has a forbidden warning next to it. The Jaffa are not allowed to travel there." Jolinar grabbed the tablet. She punched the symbols through. Jack watched the Stargate light up.

A blast shook the room, nearly throwing everyone off their feet.

"Looks like you're coming with us!" Jack hollered.

Jolinar frowned at the idea.

"Come on!" Kawalsky shouted, waving impatiently over to them. He tapped his foot, looking ready to leap in, but he waited as Jack got Daniel over his shoulder again. "Jolinar!" he bellowed, waving his hand wildly.

"I need to remain!" Jolinar eyed the doors once more. "Someone must be near Jermak for the plan!"

"Look, I very much doubt you can explain why you were here! They catch you, and it'll be all over for you and your friends! We'll go with my plan!" Jack shouted, grabbing her by the arm. "GO!"

The door exploded.

There was no other choice.

Jolinar fired the zat at the Jaffa coming in, Kawalsky stepping away from the Stargate to fire a few shots. Kawalsky yanked out something from his jacket, hollering for to Jack to go. Jack gave one last look at Kawalsky before he leaped into the Stargate with Daniel. Jolinar ran, then threw herself in right after Jack.

Kawalsky grinned at the Jaffa as he backed up towards the Stargate.

Just before he tossed two grenades rolling to their feet.

"Thanks for the party," he quipped, waggling his fingers goodbye at them before jumping in after them.

The twin explosions dropped the guards to their feet just as the wormhole disengaged.

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It was dark.

So dark, Jack didn't see what tripped him, and he fell onto the ground hard. He heard Jolinar making a sound as well as she landed none too gently before Kawalsky was flung out of the wormhole with little grace and form.

"That," Jack groaned as he got up, "was not fun." He rotated his sore shoulder and then realized the shoulder was empty of his burden. Spinning around sharply, he saw the archeologist lying prone on the ground, a few inches away from him. He checked on Daniel, hands running over the torso and limbs; he was relieved to see the man was still only sleeping.

"Are you alright?" Jolinar asked. She got up, picking leaves out of her hair and clothes. Then she stopped as if realizing there was no point in fixing her appearance.

"No," the colonel muttered. He cursed the darkness. He could barely see his hand inches away from his face. "Where the hell are…_aw man_…"

"What?" Kawalsky asked as he got up. Staggering in the dark, he swore as he tripped over an unseen root.

Jack eyed the forest around them, no light visible from the top, the Stargate standing in a small clearing all too familiar to him. "We're on the dark side of P3X-797." He groaned.

A howl could be heard from the distance that sounded more animal than human.

"What the _hell_ was that?" Kawalsky hissed.

"The Touched," Jack said grimly. "And I doubt they found a cure yet. We can't stay here."

"No shit. But I've got to punch in a code otherwise they'll put a few bullet holes in our skulls before we can even say don't shoot," Kawalsky muttered as he pulled back his sleeve, revealing a worn looking GDO. He touched the symbols for home. When the Stargate lit up, he turned around frantically, hearing the startled cries echoing from the forest. "What the?"

"Put the codes through now!" Jack barked as he reached down and hauled Daniel to his feet. Unconscious, Jackson swayed under his support. Jolinar quietly came up and braced him on the other side. She nodded curtly to Jack who only mouthed a "Thanks" towards her. He jerked his head to the left when he heard rustling in the trees.

"While they're still afraid of that damn Stargate, put the code through!"

The growling grew, coming closer, surrounding them from all sides.

"Hurry!" Jolinar hissed as she eyed the trees. She pulled out her zat with her free hand, aiming for the forest around them.

"This isn't like calling a phone number you know. Hold on!" the soldier yelled back.

Jack could see the device strapped to Kawalsky's wrist hadn't lit up yet. "Captain…any day now…" He could see the trees bending as more of the Touched approached. "Come on, Kawalsky…"

The light went green.

"They got our signal!" Kawalsky called out. He yelped when a rock whizzed by his face. "Shit!"

"Just go!" Jack pushed the man with his shoulder as they all jumped together through the wormhole just before the first distorted face arrived behind them.

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It was so damn cold.

Jack's teeth immediately chattered, and his arms fumbled, nearly losing his ward from the sudden temperature drop. He steadied his feet and started to turn to check on Kawalsky and the Tok'ra.

"Stay where you are!"

A dozen rifles aimed right for his head greeted him in the white cave.

"Don't shoot!"

Jack blinked, seeing Kawalsky waving his hands frantically at the heavily dressed soldiers, stepping in front of Jack and Daniel. No one lowered his or her weapons.

"Lower your guns!" Jolinar shouted.

Jack glowered at the soldiers surrounding him, but no one moved. It was unnerving to see familiar faces garbed in heavy coats with rifles aimed right at him and Daniel.

Daring to turn his head a little, Jack saw the remainder of the cavern and realized it was the same one he and Carter had found themselves in when the Stargate fluctuated and separated them from the rest of the team. He half expected his leg to ache just from looking at the dark cave.

Only it wasn't dark.

Strobe lights, strung from makeshift catwalks, lit the place into eerie blue surroundings, the exhaled air from everyone giving it a smoky look. Wires and thick cords of cable zigzagged the entire area; large blinking boxes lined the icy walls.

In the middle of the large cavern, Jack saw the ground was gone, three submarine conning towers peeking through, cold waters lapping around them. He could see soldiers perched on top of them, their guns pointing in the same fashion.

"What are you, nuts?" Kawalsky ranted. "He's on our side!"

"You know the procedure, Captain," said a stern voice from afar. A slender form came up from the middle submarine, features hidden within large shades, lips a pale thin line. Climbing down the ladder along the side of the vessel, the person came closer.

"Routine check if we've been compromised," the person went on, voice as cold as the air around them, pulling off the shades as he or she spoke. Wary blue eyes appeared, narrowing as they saw Jack O'Neill was not the one they knew.

Jack stiffened.

"Commander, this...uh...this is a long, long story!" Kawalsky darted a concerned look over to Jack. The colonel couldn't find anything to say. He was staring at a familiar face that didn't recognize his.

It was Sam.

Well…almost.

A scar that traced the profile of her right cheekbone was barely noticeable until she turned her head towards Jolinar before dismissing her presence immediately after her gaze lay upon the Tok'ra. Her face, narrow, drawn was topped with short hair in a style even Jack would have called extreme, too close to the scalp to be called feminine. It made her look harsh and even angrier looking.

Eyes narrowing, Jack didn't see any of the scientific curiosity radiating from her like the Major Carter he knew. He had expected to be taken aback by the similarities like the past alternate Sam Carter. But this time, he found himself taken aback by the fact he couldn't find anything recognizable in this woman as Sam Carter.

"I'm sure it is a long story. And a very interesting one at that," the woman said slowly, eyes coolly checking him up and down. "Take him to the brig."

"What?" Jack couldn't keep silent now. "Carter—"

"That's Commander Hansen to you!" the blond woman said tightly, close to snapping, her eyes suddenly blazing.

Jack was taken back. "Hansen? As in Jonas Hansen?"

Kawalsky nodded, cringing as Commander Samantha Hansen shot him a warning look.

"I would be interested in knowing how you knew that." Samantha studied Jack's face. "Among other things." She looked at Kawalsky, the hard look in her eyes softening a bit.

"Nice to see you back, Captain." She barely acknowledged the Tok'ra woman, looking at a space over Jolinar's head. Jolinar didn't take offense though. She merely kept her distance.

"Thank you, sir. Uh…he…uh…Jack…" Kawalsky sighed as he stumbled over the words. "His friend over there. Doctor Jackson. He needs a medic."

"Jackson?" Hansen looked back over to Jack. The colonel glowered at her but said nothing. He readjusted his grip on Daniel, the young man's head drooping further.

"Take them to X-rays first. Make sure they don't have one of those things in them. Then to the brig."

"Hey! We're here to hel—"

"We'll talk later _if_ we find no threat from you." With that, she nodded curtly towards the soldiers and walked away.

"Sorry," Kawalsky muttered as two Marines came forward to lead Jack to the subs. "She's not what you expected I guess."

"No shit." Jack's eyes followed her to the sub she was entering again, her clipped words to the other soldiers sending them hurrying over to the Stargate to stand guard. "Took me for a loop."

"She's okay. You just got to understand—" Kawalsky paused when he heard Daniel moan softly. "Forget it. We'd better let our docs look him over. Come on...this way."

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"Okay!" Sam called out to the side where Richards and Anderson stood. "On my signal, you'll be firing towards the mirror at exactly where I left a marker!" She pointed to a thin pole stand with a paper waving on its tip, a bullseye hastily scrawled on it as someone's idea of a joke, although John couldn't find it to be at all funny. Standing at the same height Daniel was, the paper fluttered as the rest of the crew jogged past to get out of the way.

"Simmons will be calling out where you'll run next," Sam told John.

John nodded grimly. "I think I remember most of what happened though, Major."

"We need the timing to be exact and the details of their actions—"

"Fine," John gritted out. "Let's get on with it. We're wasting time."

If the major sounded offended at being cut off at the knees, she gave no sign. "Siler? I need you to stand by Ferretti. In the beginning, Daniel was by the DHD platform with Captain O'Neill."

Siler called out he was ready.

"Sending the rover through!" Anderson called out.

Sam hurried to the side where the rooms were. "On my count, after the rover stops halfway, Captain O'Neill, you'll have to manipulate the controls for it as if it was coming your way like it did with the colonel. I jury rigged a two way antenna so it should respond no matter what direction it's facing now."

Staring at the remote controls in his hands, John silently nodded.

"We're ready here?" Someone else called out.

"Get the staff weapon targeted for that spot," Sam pointed to the paper once more. "We need it angled just so in case it is one of the catalysts."

The major was shouting commands back and forth, her voice firm yet not harsh. John couldn't help but marvel at the differences.

Where as the commander he knew wouldn't waste time explaining her actions and decisions; this Sam Carter, a name he still couldn't believe, was taking her time to explain.

_More like lecturing though_, he thought as she was pointing something out to Ferretti. She wasn't bitter or angry, just driven. An attitude John found strange. But he guessed he couldn't blame the commander. She'd lost just as much from what he heard from Dan, her loss coupled with the bitter responsibility of making sure no one else suffered the same again. Her anger, his rift with Dan was all due to the towering black ring that stood behind Ferretti and Carter.

The Stargate.

John tore his eyes away from it. He wondered what Dan was doing right now. He hoped someone was with him while his brother was awake. He remembered times when Dan woke up in fright, unable to recognize his room, even when he was a child. A habit John could never get him to break.

_John could still see the sneer in the bastard's face as he cut into his arm with the hot blade. He gritted his teeth, tensing and suddenly realized the cuffs were gone. He yanked his torturer to him, then leaped off the bed and slammed the son of a bitch down on the floor, his knee on his back. Just a little more pressure and he could snap the spine in two and make him pay for what he did to Michaels and-_

_Someone was calling out his name, crying out in pain and agony that echoed his voice. He reached down to wrap his hands around the throat when strong arms pulled him off._

_"O'Neill!" a voice shouted. "What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy? Get off him! Simon, help me with him. Dan...hey, you okay? Shit...someone get the doctor in here!"_

_John twisted in the grip, whoever it was until a resounding slap swung his head sharply to the left._

_And the world became silent._

_Focusing, the room now filled with light, John blinked._

_"God damn...just sit down on the bed...Simon, where the hell is that doctor?" Cromwell vanished from view as he stooped down to pick John's victim up. As the light haired top emerged above the floor, John stiffened._

_Dan._

_"Ah shit," John croaked and reached forward to catch the further slumping form, but another pair of arms, this time dressed with medical white sleeves, pulled him back away from his brother. He struggled before stilling as he saw Dan stir with a groan._

_"Stop," Dan croaked out. "He...he didn't mean to..." He swayed on his feet as he rose, hand around his middle but otherwise alert. John felt a wave of overwhelming relief wash over him. "He probably...probably thought I was Hassef...he was remembering..."_

_Hassef?_

_John stared at Cromwell, who nodded, waving the doctors away from John. Hassef was a dark leader, hiding in the shadows. He didn't even show when they broke into his Iraqi compound. How did Dan know his name?_

_White gauze peeked out of Dan's gray cotton shirt, the top three buttons torn off thanks to John's attack. Dan stumbled, falling back on the other bed with a grunt. He smiled weakly to reassure John until he saw where his brother's gaze had gone. Dan blanched, his hand went up like a whip and yanked closed the shirt, the bandages gone from sight._

_John narrowed his eyes as he realized one of Dan's hands was bandaged, three fingers were splinted all the way to the knuckle. _

_"What the hell did you do?" John rasped._

_Dan didn't look at him, eyes on the floor._

_Cromwell answered instead. One hand on his shoulder, his commanding officer responded in a grim voice, grimmer than John had ever heard._

_"He did what he had to do to get you back."_

_Dan never said a word._

"Captain O'Neill?" Sam's face came up abruptly in front of him, and John had to squelch down the instinct to swing out and punch. She must have read it in his posture because she backed up a step and repeated her question.

"We're ready to begin on your word."

"Fine." John couldn't speak up for some reason. He gestured towards the mirror wall and nodded.

Sam glanced at his hands, noting the tight grip on the remote and hurried away, awkward with witnessing the swirl of emotions she saw flashing on the captain's face. It was too much like the colonel's face for her to stand by and watch. She was used to the cocky grin and confident composure that told her everything would turn out fine.

"Okay," Sam said, "We're moving the rover! Once the wall vanishes, no one goes through! Captain O'Neill, you'll just remote control it back in."

John, all the way up front, waved limply in response.

_Colonel, I hope you can wait a little bit more_, Sam thought, suddenly realizing how much she missed his quick remarks. She'd never thought she would see the day she would long to hear a smart quip from Jack O'Neill.


	22. Chapter 21

**CHAPTER TWENTY ONE**

Jack could feel the stares of soldiers passing by the door as he sat in the tiny, cluttered room, the old machine clicking as it took X-rays. Their stares were disconcerting, and he was at a loss for a response or even to snap at them for gawking. He sat there, hearing the clicks of a device that screamed for maintenance but woefully received none. Back stiff from the lashes, muscles tight from sitting too long, he paid no attention to the discomfort. His concern and concentration lay elsewhere.

Across from him, he could see Daniel, slumped against the side of an alcove, arms folded on his lap, Kawalsky supporting him. O'Neill looked right at the soldier who nodded solemnly. And Jack relaxed a bit.

It seemed like old times where he could just let his intention be known without needing to say one word. The easy routine of a quick look to a comrade, a curt nod in response, and the equal dry wit was something Jack had missed from the Kawalsky from his reality.

Despite the situation, Jack felt a little better, seeing a dead man walking again. Even if it was in another reality.

"Okay. You can step down now," the technician said in a weary voice. He scribbled something on a clipboard and tossed the pencil on a crowded table, not seeming to care when it rolled to the ground. Jack slid off the gurney, touching briefly the covered cut on his face where Hathor had struck him.

The infirmary or Med. as he heard the others call it was small. From the way it looked, the submarine rooms were combined together. He could see where one of the walls used to be, expanding the Med. room a bit, beds tacked to the walls like bunks, serving as the recovery area. But it was still barely the size of the briefing room back in SGC.

Everyone looked tired. As if they hadn't slept a wink. The salutes as Kawalsky went by with them were present, but they were sharp. Too sharp. As if they were expected to salute each and every time they walked down the tight halls. Everyone appeared too high strung, too alert, their shoulders too straight and stiff to be natural.

Even Doctor Dayton whom Jack had never seen before looked strained to the point of exhaustion. Bundled in a jumpsuit with only his tag identifying him as of the medical profession, he examined Daniel after taking the X-rays and stitching up Jack's back. The archeologist, oblivious to the activity, slept on the gurney as he was checked over.

"He has a bit of a temperature," Dayton announced as he slipped the glass stick out of Daniel's mouth. Kawalsky was still holding on to him tightly as Jack changed into the jumpsuit they provided. He frowned as he zipped up the suit a size too large and fingered the nametag that etched an unfamiliar name on it.

"What?" The colonel looked over to Kawalsky. "How bad is it?"

"We don't know." Dayton shrugged, looking more tired than concerned. "It can become worse. His muscles are beginning to cramp."

"Is this what she meant? About it now being up to him?" Jack demanded.

Kawalsky nodded, regret clear on his face. "It's like everything coming back online, Colonel. There will be intense cramping, slight fevers, nausea—"

"Shakes, convulsions if the fever becomes too high, arthritic-like pains to the joints—" Dayton droned on.

"Stop right there!" Jack barked. "Why didn't you tell me any of this?" Kawalsky awkwardly stood there, one hand on Daniel's arm to keep him from falling off the gurney.

"Because the survival rate after the removal is fifty percent, Colonel O'Neill."

Everyone turned towards the door where Jolinar stood.

Jack's temper flared. "You should have told me about this! I would never have agreed to having that done to him if I knew!"

"Which is exactly why I choose not to tell you!" Jolinar said as the doctor went back nervously to his examination.

"It wasn't your choice to make!" Jack glanced at Daniel. Red anger burned in his chest. He whipped around back to the Tok'ra. "You should have told us the risks!"

"You would have stopped us, and then there would have been no hope at all for your friend!"

"You don't know that for sure!" Jack shouted back.

"I have seen enough to know!" Jolinar's eyes flashed brightly.

The colonel glared at her silently.

Daniel's soft moan broke the silence, and Jack turned towards his friend.

"'a'k?"

"Yeah." The older man squeezed Daniel's shoulder briefly. "Right here."

"W-where?" Daniel tried lifting his head. Exhausted, he dropped his head back onto the gurney, his eyes still closed. "W-where are we? Are we still on the ship?"

"You're on our base, Doctor Jackson." Kawalsky spoke up, making a face as it sounded funny in his ears.

"The second Stargate?"

Again, flickers of surprise showed on everyone's faces except for Jack's. Daniel wrinkled his nose, lifting his hand up to his eyes. Rubbing them, he opened them and flinched before squeezing his eyes shut again.

"Daniel?" Jack looked at the others worriedly. He stood over his friend as he moaned, eyes clenched tightly.

"I can't see anything...white light...can't see anything else..." Daniel's hands fumbled, a panicked look coming over his face. "Jack..."

Jack quietly placed a hand over his shoulder, and the young man calmed, but Jack could still see the worry lining his brow.

"His eyes are still sensitive. They're slowly coming back like everything else." Jolinar explained, seeing Jack's silent question, a dark look flickering across her face. "He's come far compared to the others. His sight will return quickly."

Daniel visibly relaxed.

"Just keep them closed for now, okay?" Jack murmured.

"'Kay," Daniel sighed. Then, he stiffened and tried to sit up again.

"Whoa! Hold it right there, Doc," Kawalsky admonished, one palm flat against Daniel's chest, stopping him. "Where do you think you're going?"

"We have to tell the others," Daniel croaked out. "Jack—"

"I'll tell them. We'll explain the situation and go back for the others. They want us to—"

"No, there was something else," Daniel gasped. His mind spinning, snatches of conversation he heard were twisting out of reach. He made a fist, frustrated. "Damn it...there was something else...something I heard..."

"They know we're not from around here, Daniel. And they know we've got the tablet," Jack soothed, gently pushing him down as he tried to get up. "You're going to be okay, buddy. Just relax."

"_No_, there was something else...can't think of it...head hurts...can't concentrate...it was important though...Jack..."

"We think you need rest first before the debriefing, Dan-yel. You are only beginning to recover," the Tok'ra said. "Perhaps it will come to you after rest."

Daniel tilted his head towards the voice. "Is that Jolinar?"

"Yeah," Jack cut in, darting a look at the woman, telling her to be quiet.

"Listen, why don't we show you guys to a room first, and we'll talk later?" Kawalsky jumped in between, giving Jack a funny look, then towards Jolinar. "The commander wants to see those x-rays first—"

"X-rays?" Daniel sighed as he got up with Jack's help. His body shuddered with the effort, and he found himself needing to lean against Jack heavily. The colonel didn't complain though, only stepping in closer to give him the support he needed.

"They need to make sure…" Jack started to explain, but Daniel shook his head.

"It's okay. It seems to be the routine in every reality." Daniel laughed awkwardly. "At least they didn't sedate me, then throw me in the MRI chamber this time."

O'Neill's eyes narrowed. "You never mentioned anything like that when you got back the first time."

Daniel shrugged casually, flinching as his body clenched with the gesture. "I didn't think it was important at the time."

"We're going to have a talk soon about what you think is _important_," Jack muttered as he helped Daniel out of the room.

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Daniel could feel Jack's strong grip on his elbow and relied on it to steer him. Tentatively, he reached out a hand and touched the wall to his right. He was surprised to feel its cold surface, the humming under the walls so he pulled his hand back. To his left, he could hear Kawalsky as he led to wherever they were taking them. He was tempted to open his eyes, but he tried the last time earned him tear filled eyes and an admonishment from Jack. So he had to content himself with being led like a dog on a leash.

_All things considered_, Daniel decided it wasn't too bad. He could feel lighting from the structure warming his eyelids, and that was a big difference compared to the darkness which had been so deep before that he couldn't tell if his eyes were open or closed. His steps were hesitant though, each foot pausing before stepping down, the overwhelming feeling that the next step would make him fall broke his pace. And everything rattled inside him, like getting a painful electric shock each time he put weight down on his feet. It hurt to walk. It hurt to breathe. Hell, it even hurt to think at this point.

But again, all things considered, it still wasn't too bad. The _re'klya_ were gone. He was still alive and judging by the way Jack was holding onto his elbow, the colonel was going to make damn sure he was going to stay that way.

Daniel couldn't help feeling like he'd lucked out somehow. He felt like he shouldn't complain when he'd had it for only a day whereas his counterpart had had it for over three years. Daniel took a shuddering breath and pushed on, trying not to rely on Jack's offered support so much.

"We're almost there. To the brig that is." Kawalsky's tone sounded regretful as he slowed down to allow Jack and Daniel to catch up. "Listen, it's just a precaution, you know—"

Jack interrupted the captain. "We get it, Kawalsky." He paused, waiting for Daniel to gather his breath, and Daniel could hear his friend sigh. "How're you doing, Daniel?" he asked, diverting his attention back to him.

He mustered a smile for Jack. "Fine," he lied. The muscles spasm all over his body disagreed. It felt too much like he still had the devices on, but he didn't want to touch his face to check.

Daniel was breathless. He hated how exhausted he felt. He hated how he needed to cling to Jack's arm just for a simple walk down the corridor. He sensed Jack looking at him with concern so he tried for another smile.

"Don't bother," Jack told him in a light voice. "I've seen Teal'c make better grins. You can scare a Goa'uld with that."

Daniel had to chuckle. "Smiling was never one of my strong points," he gasped as he was led into a room, bumping into the narrow entrance. Was every room this cold? He could hear Kawalsky talking to someone, perhaps a guard and heard footsteps walking away. He turned his head towards the doorway.

"Well, I don't know about that," Jack was still going. "Heard your pearly whites practically swoon the ladies at the canteen. That's why you always get a bigger serving at—" he stopped. "Kawalsky? What is it?"

"Nothing," was the curt reply. Then Kawalsky sighed. "It's just that...Hell, I forgot the brig's heating was off. We needed to conserve power so we took down the nonessentials. I could get Siler back in here, but he's working on our communications antenna with Simmons right now. Mays' going to see if your room is—I mean, Dan and John's room, is good. You can't go out by yourselves, but at least it's better in there. It's close to the naquada reactors so it should be warmer."

"How far is it?" Daniel managed.

"Well, it's a bit further down from the infirmary in the other direction," Kawalsky calculated.

"Oh," he groaned before he could stop himself, imagining the agonizing trip back to where they'd started from and going much further. Daniel felt his knees buckle as they dropped him on the ground before Jack could catch him.

"Daniel!" Hands hauled him up. Daniel couldn't even help, his body felt boneless, limp. His arms seem to flop uselessly in a poor attempt to grab the wall for support. Wheezing, he couldn't even apologize when he felt Kawalsky grabbing his ankles.

"Crap, I think we'd better just take him over there before he takes a nap on the ground," Kawalsky gritted out. Daniel could feel himself being carried between the two of them. He tried to say something, mortified to find himself being hauled around like luggage. He raised his head weakly, but the swaying back and forth from the journey was making him ill.

"Easy, Doctor Jackson, we're almost there," Kawalsky said somewhere down where his legs were.

"Just hold still, Daniel. You're not exactly a lightweight," Jack rasped above his head.

Daniel winced, remembering Jack's back, the whipping he'd heard on the ship. "S-sorry," he finally was able to say. "I can w-walk..."

"Sure...you can...run and fly as well...but this is my lifelong dream to carry you around all over the place, okay?" Jack rasped, grunting as he tried to hold up his end. "H-humor me."

Daniel nodded tiredly, dropping his head back, trying to ignore how nauseated he felt from the swinging.

Daniel found himself being carefully set on his feet, his hands guided to a door frame so he could clutch it to keep upright. Jack was gasping next to him.

"How's your back?" Daniel asked in a faint voice.

"Fine...dandy...can do...c-cartwheels...wanna see?" the colonel wheezed. He stopped suddenly and swore under his breath. "Shit, I didn't mean it that way, Daniel. Sorry."

"Huh?" Daniel didn't understand. Then, it occurred to him.

Jack had asked if he wanted to see.

He laughed, the sound choked.

"I'm sorry," Jack lamely offered again.

"I'm getting better." Daniel dismissed the apology. "This is n-nothing. Not compared to what he's—" He stopped. "I'm fine, Jack."

"You're not a very good liar, Jackson," O'Neill just said and took him by the elbow again. Too surprised to defend himself, Daniel let himself be led inside, legs wobbling.

Kawalsky sounded awkward as if he had heard everything. "Uh, this is their room when John can report in. Lower bunk is Doc's, I mean, Dan's. John placed both mattresses on the lower bunk. If you need a—"

"No, Kawalsky. This is fine. Come on, Daniel."

The room was definitely a lot warmer. And there was a low humming sound surrounding the place. Daniel swiveled his head around, trying to track the noise.

"Naquada reactors," Kawalsky explained. "They're in the next room. Runs the whole damn base. Nuclear just can't provide enough juice for us to run the Stargate more than once a day."

"Machello?" Daniel asked as he eased gingerly onto a flat surface and felt the thin mattresses underneath him. He could still feel the hard board though, but he tried not to show his discomfort by leaning into the wall. He shivered; the wall was cold.

Jack pulled up a stool next to the bed and tugged Daniel away from the wall to slip what felt like a pillow against his back, cushioning him from the freezing surface. Daniel murmured his thanks.

"Yeah. Too bad he couldn't get us some weapons along with..." Kawalsky sighed. "Look, I shouldn't even be telling you any of this. Commander's gonna hang me upside down if she hears me. Although once she hears where I placed you two, she's going to anyway."

"Kawalsky," Jack started, but the captain interrupted him.

"Look, it's okay. You guys take a breather here. They're going to be distributing rations soon. I'll let Louis know to grab you some as well. Uh..." Kawalsky coughed. "X-rays shouldn't be too long...maybe a few minutes. Simmons fixed the lab so we should have it pretty fast. I guess other than that..." He drifted off.

"What is it?" Jack asked.

"Ah..." Kawalsky thought it over and took a deep breath. "You said John and Dan are over in your reality, right?"

"Yeah." Shifting in his seat, Daniel could hear the stool creaking. Jack sounded very serious. "Yeah, they're over there right now."

Kawalsky was very sober as he asked, "How are they doing? Did they escape okay?"

"They're fine," Daniel croaked.

Kawalsky asked in an even quieter voice, "How's Dan doing really?"

Jack paused. "He's...hanging in there."

"Hanging in there," Kawalsky repeated. The soldier breathed a long sigh. "Hell, I guess that's better than dead, right?"

Jack coughed. "Right."

"Look, there'll be a guard outside so no stupid stuff, okay? Commander has you walking on thin ice already, Colonel."

"I skate pretty well," Jack quipped. Daniel shook his head ruefully.

Kawalsky laughed dryly. "I'm sure you do. But she can cut a hole in the ice from under your feet. Don't piss her off. I'll let you know when she's ready to see you." He tapped on the door and left, closing it behind him.

"When she's ready to see me," Jack grunted. "Unbelievable. Thank God, Carter isn't here. Don't want to give her any delusions of grandeur."

Suddenly feeling very parched, Daniel ran his tongue over cracked lips. "How did she look?"

Silence.

Cocking his head towards Jack's direction, Daniel frowned. "Jack?" He jumped when he felt a glass close to his mouth.

"Drink," Jack said in a voice that brooked no argument.

Obediently, Daniel took a long sip. As the stale tasting water moistened his tongue, he suddenly realized how thirsty he was.

"Whoa, there, big guy. Last thing you need is to get wet again." To Daniel's dismay, Jack pulled away the glass. "Small steps here, okay?"

"Okay," Daniel rasped. He took a deep breath, one after the other and was heartened to find the tight feeling he had before was fading. He took an even deeper breath and coughed.

"What did I say?" Jack said sternly.

"Small steps," Daniel replied in a meek tone. He let his breathing calm, chest rising and falling with shallow, quick gasps. "Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"You never answered my question," he reminded Jack.

"Which one was that?"

"About how she looked," Daniel asked once more. He wondered why Jack was evading the question. "She was there, right? Sam is alive in this reality, right?"

"She's alive in our reality, too, Daniel. That's what counts," the colonel pointed out.

"I know. I just...how did she look?"

"Daniel…"

"I'm just curious." Shifting in his seat, Daniel painfully pulled his legs up to his chest and found it eased the pangs of his stomach, clenching uncomfortably, making it hard for him to straighten.

Daniel sat there, listening to Jack breathing, tapping his fingers on his knee, rocking back and forth on the stool. He tentatively tried opening his eyes and cringed as a blinding light caused them to tear.

Sighing, Jack patted his knee. "Daniel, just keep your eyes closed, will ya? You're not doing any good trying to burn them out."

"I just want to see," Daniel said faintly. "It's just too weird sitting here with my eyes closed, listening to everything going on." He sighed heavily. "Now I know how Dan must have felt."

"Yeah," Jack replied awkwardly.

"I mean, I guess I should be grateful." Daniel waved his hand in a circle up in the air. "This, all of this. What Ra did to this planet. I guess it's just as well I can't see it."

"Trust me," Jack cut in. "There's not much to behold." He paused. "We're in a cold cavern which looks like the same one I got slingshot into a few years ago and busted my leg. Bunch of subs doubling as base. It is definitely not home; I can tell you that."

"Oh."

The two fell quiet again.

Daniel slipped an arm around his stomach, rubbing it with a wince. The cramps seem to be worsening. He told himself sternly to bear it. Daniel hid his discomfort by dropping his face over his knees, hiding the pained expression he knew he was sporting.

"She looked different." Jack finally spoke.

Daniel turned his head wearily towards his voice.

"She looked like Steven Segal's little meaner sister."

Coughing, Daniel shook his head, forehead rubbing the tops of his knees as he did, exasperated. "Thanks, Jack. That really tells me a lot. Never mind. I guess I'll see her when my eyes get bet—"

"She looked like me."

Daniel stopped.

Jack could be heard banging his head lightly on the bulkhead. Thump, thump as he sighed. "Remember how I was? On the first mission?"

"Um...vaguely..." Daniel hedged.

"Bull."

Daniel could feel himself flushing. "Okay, so I do remember. You were...uh..."

"A bastard."

Biting his lower lip, Daniel said nothing.

"She's a very angry person, Daniel." Jack lowered his voice. "She's grieving."

"Their world has been destroyed," the archeologist pointed out. "It's something too terrible not to think about—"

"No...she's grieving, Daniel. Grieving. As in over a single individual." Jack sounded certain, very gruff. "Trust me. I can tell grieving from...well...grieving."

Daniel leaned his head back on the wall, the chill seeping through his hair, his back pressed against the lumpy cushion tucked behind his spine. "Who do you think it is, Jack?"

"Huh?"

"Her father?"

"No," Jack responded quietly. "I'm thinking...Jonas Hansen."

Daniel sat up in surprise. "You mean her ex-fiancé? But didn't he—"

"Maybe in our reality. But something was different here."

"The point of change," Daniel murmured under his breath.

"Huh?"

"The point where our paths became separate versions of reality." Daniel waved a hand weakly at his surroundings. "Didn't you wonder? Wonder how we ended up free and how they didn't?"

"My main concern is that we are free, Daniel. And that we keep making sure we stay that way. Looking back doesn't make the war end differently."

Nodding absently, Daniel dropped his hand, running it on the mattress he was on. The padding felt coarse, worn in some spots, the hard board below still obvious despite the double layers. "I know. I know. But don't you ever wonder or consider how things got to be so different? I mean, for Teal'c, it was when he refused to follow Apophis any more. For Sam here it was maybe marrying Jonas Hansen, for this planet, it was never going to Abydos—"

"And what about you, huh?" Jack cut in quietly. "What about you? What was your point of change?"

Daniel turned away, fidgeting. "When I joined the Stargate project, of course."

"Of course," O'Neill responded dryly. "But there is a flaw in your theory, Doctor Jackson. Dan O'Neill joined up with the Stargate project as well in his reality."

"There were many factors that combined into—"

"What happened when you were six?" Jack interrupted.

Daniel stopped. "W-what...what are you talking about? What does that have to do with anything?"

"Nothing. Everything." Jack leaned closer to Daniel. He could feel the colonel's scrutiny boring through his head. Daniel shifted uneasily. "I have a theory of my own. I'm thinking a certain park around '71 in Chicago. I was deciding to cut out of there at the time. What about you?"

"Jack, I was a little over six years old then. I wouldn't remember stuff from that long ago," Daniel said stiffly.

"Not true. Look at Cassandra. She remembered what we did that day we gave her the dog. Hell, she even remembered what hat Teal'c wore."

"That's different, she was much older."

"Not that much older," Jack pointed out.

Daniel exploded, "Why are we even discussing this? We're here in another dimension, trapped, stuck, I don't know! And we're sitting in some room discussing domestic problems when we should be figuring out how to help these people!" Winded, the outburst took everything out of him, and he slumped against the bed, not caring if the cold walls were chilling the back of his head.

"Ah ha." Jack sounded smug.

"What?" Daniel asked, irritated. "What do you mean ah ha?"

"Domestic problems? So you do remember."

Daniel heaved, shoulders slouching. "I really don't want to talk about this now, Jack. It has nothing to do with the situation we're in."

"I think it does."

Daniel frowned. "You're wrong. It's in the past. It's over, done with. I got past it. He got past it better. It's over."

"What do you mean he got past it _better_?" Jack persisted.

"Nothing. I'm just saying—"

"No. I heard you specifically say he got past it better. Now what the hell did you mean by that?"

"Nothing!" Daniel shouted. He stopped, practically hearing Jack's stunned silence. Shaking his head, he dropped it on top of his knees. "Can we not talk about this?"

"...Sure..." Jack kept quiet for a moment. Daniel could hear him shifting on the stool, feet scuffing the floor. The humming from the reactors surrounded the room and grew louder and louder with each second of awkward silence going by.

Jack cleared his throat. "How do you feel?"

Daniel could feel the pounding in his head increasing. "Lousy."

"What do you remember about..." Jack paused as if he was thinking of the words. "About what happened? Up there. You said there was something important to remember."

Daniel nodded. "I heard something...I just can't...it's all fragmented. I can hear them, but I just can't hear them!" Frustrated, he thumped a fist on the bed.

"Easy, big guy. We're out of there already."

"We can't let them win, Jack. We just can't."

Jack sighed. "I know."

"We just can't," Daniel said again weakly. He rubbed his face, surprised to feel the rough bristles on his chin. He needed a shave. He needed a—

"Where are my glasses?" he blurted, feeling odd that his glasses weren't in his usual pocket. Daniel patted his pockets on what remained of his shirt before he stopped.

"I can't believe I said that," Daniel muttered, shaking his head.

"You're kidding, right?" Jack asked in disbelief. "You want your glasses?"

Daniel smiled sadly, turning towards his direction. "They're my last pair."

"Oh no. That changes everything," Jack drawled. "I'd better notify Hammond when we get back."

Daniel chuckled. It sounded easy, not forced like before. But abruptly, the laughter stopped.

"You okay?" Jack noticed Daniel's head was bobbing up and down as he struggled to stay awake.

"Why do you keep asking me that question?" Annoyed, Daniel scowled, sitting up straighter.

"Why are you so testy?" Jack returned.

"I'm not testy, I'm just wondering why you keep badgering me about how I feel—"

"Who's badgering?" Jack glared at Daniel who couldn't see his expression but sensed his gaze on him. "I was concerned. And you're biting my head off!"

"I'm not—" Daniel started in an angry voice. He paused, hearing himself finally. Ducking his head, knees drawn tighter to his chest, Daniel mumbled, "I'm fine, Jack. Stop making such a big deal."

"They're still bleeding, you know."

Automatically, Daniel's hands flew to where the marks were, but before he touched the small spots of blood, he lowered his hands.

"You know what they say about scalp wounds," he muttered.

"That ain't no scalp wound."

"Why are you making such an issue out of this? I told you, I'm fine."

"Sure. That's why you were trying to be one with the ground before."

"I was tired, I admit. But other than that…" Daniel sighed. "Look. I'm really tired, my head hurts a little, and I can't think clearly. Can we just drop this? Please?"

"Get some sleep," Jack said, giving up. Pushing Daniel now was not going to help. "They might not get to us for a while. We might as well get as much sleep as we can."

To his surprise, Daniel nodded his head, giving him no arguments. But he didn't slide down to lie flat on the bed. Jack watched the body shiver uncontrollably. He leaned forward, slipping an arm around Daniel's shoulders and carefully eased him down.

"Easy, just trying to get you comfortable," Jack reassured his friend when he felt Daniel stiffen on contact. He knew Daniel must be exhausted if he didn't even protest, only nodding his head weakly as his shoulders touched the mattress.

Snagging one of the folded parkas in the boxes Kawalsky had pointed out, Jack draped it over Daniel who had curled up on his side, arm wrapped around his middle. He waited, looking on as Daniel huddled tighter, cramps running throughout his body. He gave a soft moan and then was quiet, falling deeper into an uneasy sleep.

Jack looked away toward the circular room, the sight of the pale face and faint bloody marks on Daniel's temples from the devices making his eyes water, his stomach churn. He directed his attention to their confinement instead, ears open in case Daniel needed anything.

The clutter around the room actually reminded him a little of Daniel's office, books stacked in boxes, clothing in another. He eyed a picture wrapped with first aid gauze to protect it, lying on top of the books. Absently giving Daniel a pat on his knee to show he wasn't going anywhere, Jack walked the three paces over and gingerly picked it up.

"Well, I'll be damned," Jack breathed as he parted the thin yellowing fabric, revealing a cracked picture frame.

A young Daniel with a sunburned nose was smiling hesitantly back at the photographer, sitting on top of a camel, the brilliant vast pyramids of Egypt behind him. It was the same picture perched on the bookshelf in Daniel's office. Same picture, right down to the worn, oak frame and brass outlining the edges. There was one difference though.

He wasn't alone.

Jack's own face was beaming back at him at whoever was taking the picture. Left hand holding on to the camel's harness, the other hand closest to the beast was on Daniel's ankle as if to make sure he wouldn't fall. His dog tags glinted in the desert sun, and the grin on his counterpart's face was broad, lopsided as if they'd all had a little too much to drink that day.

Jack...no...John and Dan looked _happy_. Young, at ease, and happy.

Staring at his own face on the picture gave Jack an odd feeling in his belly, a lump in his throat as he realized he'd never really seen himself smile like that. To prove it, he tried copying the grin, only to find his mouth was aching from the attempt. He frowned, wondering why he even bothered and turned the picture around to check the back.

The cardboard backing was barely intact, the braces holding it to the frame were rusted and loose. Jack stared sadly at the photo as he noticed the stains exposed along the sides. The photo itself was worn, its corners curling in brown tips.

Jack carefully wrapped the photo back in the yellowing gauze. As he set it back down on top of the box where he'd found it, he caught sight of a ratty duffel bag crammed up behind the box. Jack knew he shouldn't be going through his double's things, but the faded white lettering spelling out USAF drew him closer until he found his fingers curling around the carrying straps.

With no zipper attached, its contents were fully exposed to his curious eye, and at first glance, all he saw were pictures tucked in books, old and worn, just like the other photo. Unable to stop himself, he pulled out the first volume he could reach, gingerly slipping the photo out.

"Aw man," Jack murmured, finding himself needing to sit down. gazed at the torn picture, burnt at one corner, old spots of water marring the surface, but not so much so that he couldn't recognize the three people sitting on the lawn. Him...or John, Dan and...

Charlie.

He couldn't tell what day it was or the occasion, but he recognized the cap Charlie wore. A floppy brim hat, too big for his young head, grinning at the camera as he sat between the two brothers who were fighting to make rabbit ears behind the boy.

Daniel had a hat exactly like that.

Jack didn't know how long he sat there, staring at a past that wasn't his, at a face he could still see in dreams and memory. But after a long time, long according to the stiffness of his back, he tucked the picture back in the journal, no longer wanting to see more, his throat choking at the sight of his son again, alive, happy, well. Yet from John's expression back at SGC, his fate must have ended the same.

He and John were both fathers who had lost.

What Jack wouldn't give to have it different here. Even if the boy wouldn't technically be his, if he could just see him alive somewhere, anywhere. Maybe, just maybe, his heart would ease the ache he'd carried for so long.

"God damn it," Jack muttered angrily to himself, his thumb rubbing his closed eyes. He shut the journal and tossed it into the duffel bag before he remembered its fragile state. As the book tumbled back in, another slip of paper fell out.

Jack didn't notice at first as he stayed there, eyes closed, hand pinching the place between the brows. Bowed forward, elbows propped on top of his knees, he sat there wishing away the bad memories. When they receded to an acceptable distance, he opened them and the first thing he saw was the graying cardboard backing, ink scrawling that read "New York Times, 1992".

Jack frowned, wondering at the significance of the date. He couldn't think of anything important. Aside from the fact he was rotting in some Iraqi prison, half dead.

Curiosity once again getting the better of him, Jack reached out and picked up the item, finding it to be an old newspaper article glued to the hard paper. Before he could read it, a quiet knock on the door came before it opened, and Kawalsky's head popped in.

"Colonel O'Neill." The captain looked like he felt so odd saying this that Jack jumped in.

"Look, O'Neill or Jack is fine, Kawalsky. No need for the rank right now."

Kawalsky nodded before he caught sight of the article in Jack's hands. Guiltily, Jack shrugged.

"Sorry. Got a little snoopy. Saw my—our face and had to take a peek."

"Yeah..." the captain only said, eyes still on the article. "That one was Colonel Cromwell's though, not Cap's. Guy dropped it off here before the two split to get Dan. Commander sure had a fit about that."

Startled, Jack looked down at the article in his hand. Frank Cromwell's face was glaring back at him, hands at the camera which was taking his picture without permission. The colonel didn't look happy, snarling at the flash as he led his group of people away from the spotlight.

Jack squinted his eyes, trying to make out the blurred faces of the group. His eyes widened when he recognized Dan's pale face in the background, John nowhere in sight.

"Iraq...I think that was the embassy then...they got jumped outside of the embassy as they left and took that picture. Washington nearly had a fit," Kawalsky explained. He studied Jack's shocked face and hazarded a guess. "Uh...did you go on that mission to—"

"Yeah."

Kawalsky swore under his breath. "Sorry, O'Neill. How long?"

"Too long," Jack responded curtly before he took a deep breath and elaborated. "Four months."

"Shit."

Jack narrowed his eyes. "Yeah."

"Dan must have gone nuts that first month you...I mean...John went MIA. Then when they changed the status to KIA, Doc vanished from the face of the Earth." Kawalsky extended his hand for the article. Jack quietly handed it to him. As the captain scanned the paper, he sighed. "Next thing I hear, he was popping up in the Times as some American who was arrested for terrorism in Kuwait."

"What the hell was he doing in Iraq? What kind of crap is that? Terrorism?" Jack snorted. "From what I saw of the guy and what I know, he's no terrorist."

"Hey...they'll say anything to get an American behind their walls for questioning." Kawalsky refused to explain further, but Jack felt a chill down his spine.

"Anyway, a month later, I got word from Cromwell that Cap—I mean, John was found. They were sent off to Durham's hospital. Three months later, they were back. Both of them. Couldn't get a peep out of them about the whole thing." Kawalsky shrugged, pretending it didn't bother him, but the way he scowled at the article told Jack more. He shook his head. "You know, we shouldn't...I mean...this is Cromwell's stuff. We shouldn't touch this stuff. I know John will want to give this to his wife if we ever find her."

"What happened to him?" Jack asked quietly. Cromwell's determined face flashed before him, the memory of them dangling over the Stargate as they were pulled in by the black hole still fresh in his mind.

"Last I heard he and John set off to get Dan, then the next thing I knew, we heard John and Dan had vanished into mid-air and we..." Kawalsky stopped, his eyes crinkling, his brow flattened out to a straight line. He shook his head sadly.

"What?"

"Cromwell was found hanging in Detroit a day later. Simmons was on recon. He was the one who came back with the body."

"Shit."

"He knew the risks." Kawalsky shifted uncomfortably. "Look, I came to tell you my commander is ready to see you now. No, just you," he said as he saw Jack reach over to wake Daniel. "I'll stay with him if you want." The captain stuck his hands in his pockets, waiting.

Jack paused.

"Look, me and Dan are pretty good friends. It would be hard for me to beat up on the guy who looks like him." Kawalsky followed Jack's gaze to Daniel's sleeping profile. "When he wakes, I'll tell him where you went if that's what you're worried about."

Jack got up reluctantly, massaging his shoulder with a grimace.

Noticing the pained twitch, Kawalsky frowned. "Need something for that?"

Remembering how bare the cabinets were in Med., Jack shook his head. "It's manageable. What you guys gave me before was fine. Maybe I should just wake him and let him know at least where I—"

"Look, I'm not here to send you guys off to the gallows or something," Kawalsky said, exasperated. "You two were going to be my kid's godfathers for Pete's sake!" Something came over his expression, and he lowered his tone. "That was before...never mind...I meant John and—"

Jack broke the moment by shaking his head. "Yeah...well..." He looked down at Daniel once more. "Better not keep the lady waiting..."

"Tell him I'll be right back, okay?" Jack nodded towards Daniel once more.

"I will." Kawalsky opened the door, revealing the soldier waiting outside. "Mays will show you to the next sub, Colonel."

"Later," Jack said flippantly, slipping out of the door, one last look out of the corner of his eye at Daniel before he was gone.

The reassuring smile Kawalsky wore faded as he shut the door. Staring at Daniel's back where the archeologist faced the wall, he ran a hand through his hair.

_"But, commander!" Kawalsky protested._

_She looked at him steadily. "You know we have a situation. The last message we got was that Ra was no longer in orbit around Abydos. He should have been there for a few days more. Something has come up, and we need to know what." _

_Heaving a sigh, Kawalsky nodded glumly. "But I don't think Doctor Jackson knows anything. He had those things on almost as soon as they got captured from what Jolinar said."_

_"You said he knew where Colonel O'Neill was, didn't you?"_

_"Yeah, but—"_

_"Then he might have been alert enough to hear other things." Hansen paced around the area where he stood. She folded her arms in front of her, hand touching her chin as she thought it over._

_"Get O'Neill in here, and I'll have a talk with him. That should leave you alone long enough with him to find out what he does remember."_

_"Why don't we just let them both—"_

_Hansen stopped in front of him and narrowed her eyes. "If this O'Neill is like the one we know, he'll be jumping down our throats at every question we direct to him. Separately, we can collaborate their stories for authenticity as well." She tossed him a map from her desk. "We don't have much time left, Kawalsky."_

_Curious, he unrolled the curled paper and glanced at it, recognizing the stellar charts. His eyes widened. "This—"_

_"The Tok'ra woman managed to slip this out of Jermak's possession. You saw the marked spots?"_

_"Yeah..."_

_"Jermak wants more than this planet. If he takes over from Ra after all, gains the armies he needs, and really does start off with these spots first..."_

_"Our refugee colonies," Kawalsky cut in grimly. "He'll find our refugee colonies."_

_Hansen nodded. "Precisely. Talk to Jackson, Captain. Find out if he knows anything. I want to know it all." She got closer to him, her eyes glued to his. "I don't care if you have to bribe him with neuar or beat the answers out of him, make sure you find out everything."_

_"Yes, ma'am," Kawalsky managed._

_Hansen's icy blue eyes warmed a degree. "He's not Dan O'Neill, Captain. Keep that in mind, and it'll go easier. We've got a lot of lives hanging on our actions. We can't go soft on just one man." She waved towards the door. "Get O'Neill over here. Dismissed."_

_Handing her back the map, Kawalsky turned on his heel and walked out, mulling over how he was going to begin._

"Shit," Kawalsky muttered. "This really sucks." He stared at Daniel's back for another moment. Then, he sat down on the stool Jack had used before. The curled posture Daniel wore bore too eerie of a resemblance to another man he'd promise to watch over after being discarded by Ra.

_Kawalsky whistled as he tossed the small apple up in the air. It wasn't much. Hell, this was barely the size of his palm, the choice ones taken by the generals and the overseers. So when the Chicago brigade intercepted the monthly shipments, no one noticed a few bushels missing of the rejected crops from the caravans._

_"Rebels tend to get neglected in the food distribution these days," Charlie mused with a grin as he went down the ladder to the second sub. "Wonder why?"_

_Seeing the hallway tapering off to the makeshift labs, Kawalsky hollered as he usually did. _

_"Hey, Doc! Got something for you!" He tossed the small green fruit up in the air again, always making sure to catch it before it fell and bruised its flesh. "Didn't see you when Freeman came back with the stuff!"_

_No answer._

_Probably got his wiretaps on and his headphones plugged in, Kawalsky thought as he banged on the metal dividers as he went._

_"Hey, Doooc! Food! You remember that stuff, right? Cap's gonna have my ass if you don't look like a blimp when he gets back!"_

_Kawalsky peered in one lab; the books they recovered from the destroyed libraries were stacked haphazardly high. No archeologist in sight._

_"Hey, Dan! Doctor Danny!" Kawalsky grinned. That usually got his friend's goat. Any minute, the young man was going to holler back to not call him that name. Never failed._

_Nothing._

_The soldier's smile faded. He could have sworn they said the scholar was in the labs. He didn't see him in his room near the naquada reactors._

_"Doc?" Kawalsky stuck his head in the last room and eyed the table in the center, piled high with rubbings of scrolls. His frown deepened when he saw the tablet was sitting in the middle. Dan never left without it. Never. It was his only way to read the scriptures, the tablet raising all text it scanned so his fingers could feel them out. The soldier studied the table, the walls, and his gaze drifted towards the floor when he saw the papers were scattered down there too. He saw something black, like the bottom of a boot-_

_"Shit!" Kawalsky dropped the apple, it rolling away down the hall as he scrambled over to the prone figure on the floor. Dan O'Neill was covered with the papers, having spilled somehow over his body._

_"Doc. Hey, Doc…Shit…Ferretti!" Kawalsky shouted, hoping his voice would carry far enough. He frantically turned the young man over, onto his lap, trying to see what was wrong. He froze when he saw the blood streaming out of Dan's nose. "Ah crap! Ferretti!"_

_The thin soldier popped his head in the lab. "What the hell is your problem? Snakeheads can hear you all the way down in Dall—" Ferretti's eyes bulged as he saw Kawalsky cradling Dan's head in his lap. "Shit! What the—"_

_"Get James! Get him! I last saw him in the Med.!" the captain ordered as he tapped Dan's cheek. "Come on, Dan." The young man didn't respond, face a startling pale contrast to the blood still trickling down his nose. Kawalsky whipped up his head and saw Ferretti still gawking. _

_"What the fuck are you standing around for? Go! Get the medic!" Kawalsky was practically screaming._

_The soldier recovered from his shock and shot off like a bullet, his voice echoing through the vessel. Kawalsky could hear other soldiers getting out of the way as the man flew by. He ignored this, fervently trying to coax the man in his arms to wake up. Dan stirred with a soft moan, coughing as he tried to speak._

_"J-john?"_

_"No, Doc. Take it easy. Ferretti went to get the medic. We'll have you right in no time—"_

_"N-no." Dan shook his head, gritting his teeth. "The stuff they give me don't work."_

_A chill went down the captain's spine. "What?" he blurted out._

_Dan moaned, and Kawalsky grasped his hand tightly. "They don't work any more…not like before…must be because I was given the…Tok'ra's stimulants…I…" Dan screamed, writhing in pain. Kawalsky cursed and held on tight until he calmed down._

_"Shit. Hold on. You hear me? Hold on! We'll get you a double dose to hold you off until we can find more…"_

_"Tok'ra…"_

_"We don't know where to find those people!" The captain frowned to himself. Even if they did, would they even want to help them? He gripped his friend's hand tightly. "Come on. Your brother's going to have my head as a footstool if anything happens to you!"_

_"Not your fault."_

_"Like he cares," the soldier retorted. He felt someone walk in and spun his head towards the door. He blinked when instead of the medic, he saw Jacob Carter at the door, still dressed in his camouflage. "General Carter? Sir?" Kawalsky was surprised. He thought the general was still going to be away on recon for another few months. _

_"What happened?" Carter strode into the room and dropped down next to Dan. He placed a hand on his forehead. _

_"That happened." Kawalsky jerked his head angrily towards the devices. "Last dose was only a few days ago."_

_"Doctor O'Neill?" Carter spoke softly, leaning closer to the archeologist. "Can you hear me?"_

_Dan nodded, gritting teeth in pain._

_"I heard you say stimulants," Carter murmured._

_"Yeah, you weren't here. You were still in Detroit when we recruited John O'Neill—"_

_"The First Guard?" Jacob looked up sharply._

_"H-he had no choice…" Dan's voice was faint. _

_"I'm not judging him," Carter said, looking at Kawalsky thoughtfully. "Just wondering about my options."_

_"Options?" Kawalsky repeated. "What do you mean options?" He looked down at Dan worriedly, the ill man breathing through his teeth, blind eyes staring upward._

_"Ch…"_

_"Just rest. Ferretti's gonna come back with James soon. It'll be okay."_

_"They don't…work any…"_

_"Just give it a try!" _

_"Wait," Carter interrupted._

_Kawalsky looked up and saw Carter pull out a small vial of clear blue liquid._

_"What the hell is that?" the captain demanded as Carter popped the cork. Dan moaned softly as he felt him slip a hand behind his neck, lifting him higher over and onto Jacob's knees. Kawalsky lunged forward, trying to stop him when Carter abruptly shoved him with his hand. The captain yelped as he found himself crashing into the cabinets a few feet away._

_Carter tilted the vial insistently now. "Hurry. The pain should abet quickly enough if you hurry." He pressed the glass bottle closer, and Dan took the whole thing down just as Kawalsky stirred._

_"Stop!" Charlie reached for the vial. To his dismay, it was empty. He pulled O'Neill closer, shaking him slightly. Dan sighed softly and shifted in position. The young man's head rolled back against his shoulder seconds later._

_"Dan? Dan!" The captain grabbed a fistful of Carter's shirt. "What did you give him? What was in that thing?"_

_"Neuar," Carter said flatly. _

_Stunned, Kawalsky let go. "Neuar?" The soldier looked down at Dan. The young man's breathing evened out, lines of pain smoothed out of the corners of his eyes. "The Tok'ra shit? How the…when did you get this stuff? And why didn't we know about this until now?"_

_"Like we said. We needed to know our options before deciding."_

_"Deciding?" Charlie's voice turned hard. "Decide what? What options?" General or not, the soldier was half tempted to grab him again and give him a violent shake._

_To his shock, Jacob's eyes glowed a bright white. A deeper voice, mixing with the general's spoke up._

_"You wished to contact the Tok'ra?"_

_A dozen clicks resounded and Kawalsky turned around to find Ferretti with his help, their guns aimed at the glowing eyes._

_"I am Selmac," Carter said in a different voice overlapping the one he knew. "We bring news from the Tok'ra."_

_"What news?" Sam Hansen's voice was hard as she stepped in between her men. The soldiers promptly parted to let her into the cramped room. She looked over her father once, and her mouth thinned to a white line. "Besides the fact that you captured and killed my father Jacob Carter?" _

_"Of an offer." Carter eyed the woman who was pacing in front of him, her eyes narrowed, studying him without coming any closer. "Your father Jacob Carter approves."_

_"Jacob Carter is dead," she said shortly. "Apparently by you, it would seem."_

_"No. He is still alive. We are not Goa'uld."_

_"Sorry if I don't see the difference." Sam motioned Kawalsky to leave. The soldier carefully picked Dan up, Ferretti edging along the walls to help when Dan moaned._

_"Sammy?"_

_"Get him out of here," the commander ordered._

_"No…wait…Tok'ra…" Dan struggled to get out of Kawalsky's grasp. "They helped us."_

_"Once and we still don't know why!" Sam snapped, her anger directed at Jacob._

_"Sam."_

_All the soldiers murmured surprise as Jacob's voice returned._

_Hansen stilled._

_"Look, I know it's hard to believe, but it's really me."_

_"How?" Kawalsky asked this time._

_"Remember Detroit? You guys thought we perished, but I managed to escape." A few nodded. Carter paused at the sight of Dan trying to stand steadily. A brief smile flickered across his face and Kawalsky blinked in surprise._

_"I almost didn't make it, Sammy."_

_The commander didn't react to the nickname._

_"Selmac's host was dying, but I was too stubborn to die. They offered a chance for me to leave on my own two feet in exchange for saving Selmac." Carter shrugged. "I took it."_

_"Knowing what they were," Sam grated out._

_"We heard the rumors about the Tok'ra."_

_"Like you said…rumors."_

_"Which are true," Dan whispered, arm draped over Kawalsky to keep upright. "They helped me…up in Ra's ship…they got you Machello's machines…"_

_Hate laced her voice with a bitter edge. "Pretty gestures but they haven't exactly jumped in to save us."_

_Carter nodded. "We weren't sure of you. As you weren't sure of us. The risk to the resistance was too great."_

_"He even talks like them Goa'ulds," someone muttered, and the guns lifted higher._

_"Sammy." Dan called out. He tilted his head towards her direction. "At least hear him out."_

_The commander studied Dan, pursing her lips before turning back towards the Tok'ra in her father's body. "I'll give you five minutes. If I don't like what I hear, then you know what I must do."_

_Jacob Carter nodded grimly, Selmac's voice replying, "We understand."_

_Walking up to Carter, Sam Hansen narrowed her eyes. "Is my father anywhere in there?"_

_"He lives as do I. We both live in a partnership."_

_"Goa'uld don't live in partnership. They take what they want."_

_"We are not Goa'uld. We are Tok'ra."_

_Sam snorted. "We'll see. Jefferies, take him to the brig. Ferretti, get James there for an examination. Captain—"_

_Kawalsky stood higher, arm firmly around Dan's waist to keep him up._

_Her eyes softened. "Get the doctor back to his room for some rest."_

_Dan lifted his head. "Sammy."_

_"We'll talk later, Doctor O'Neill. Later." She strode out of the room, the Tok'ra and a few soldiers quickly following, leaving Kawalsky and Dan alone._

"Sorry, Doctor Jackson," Kawalsky muttered as he reached out a hand to wake him.

"Sorry about what?"

Kawalsky jumped in his seat, the quiet voice startling him. Swearing under his breath, the captain steadied himself. "When did you wake up?"

"Just now." Daniel said in a quiet voice. He turned around, flat on his back. Rubbing his eyes, he opened them once, then flinched, shutting them almost immediately.

"Hey, we barely took them out not more than a few hours ago. Give yourself a break." The captain gripped Daniel's shoulder. He watched as the eyes squinted shut.

Daniel nodded tiredly, offering a weak smile. "I'm a little curious about where I am right now."

"Nothing much. Judging from the way your colonel offered to help us, probably drab compared to your world." Pausing, Kawalsky noted Daniel struggling to get up. "Here, let me—"

"No...I can...t-thank you though." Sitting up, back against the wall, Daniel breathed heavily from the exertion. "You...I heard you say sorry. For what?"

"For waking you," Kawalsky muttered. "I have some questions I need to ask you."

"Where's Jack?"

"With my commander."

"Oh." Daniel appeared to be thoughtful. Finally, he spoke again. "I have some questions as well. We could exchange information if you like."

"Sure. Mind if I ask first?" the captain asked lightly.

Daniel shook his head.

Kawalsky coughed. "How much do you remember about those things you got on you?"

"Aside from the fact that they hurt like hell?" Daniel's mouth was pressed in a grimace. "Some things...I remember her giving them to me after I refused to be her...chosen."

"Yeah...well...she's kinda...a little bit hung up on you."

Daniel snorted, not surprised. "A little?" He shook his head and sobered. "Aside from that, I recall waking up later and they were talking—"

"Wait a sec. Who's they?"

"Hathor and Jermak."

Kawalsky nodded, then realized Daniel couldn't see him. "Okay. Know him. Those two bed buddies. Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde."

The strangled chuckle from Daniel told the captain he agreed. An odd look came over his pale face. "In a manner of speaking...they were talking about Ra and their plans for his assassination."

Sitting up straighter, Kawalsky listened with growing interest. "Did they say anything in particular?"

Massaging the sides of his temples, Daniel shook his head. "I don't think so..."

"You don't _think_ so?" echoed the captain.

Daniel could feel the blood rushing into his head, her voice over and over again, her eyes burning into his mind. He couldn't get beyond that for some reason. "I...They were saying something about..." He swallowed, his throat was so dry. "About Ra coming in personally for the execution..."

"We know." Looking to the floor, then back at Daniel's scrunched face, lines of pain around the eyes and mouth, Kawalsky murmured "We know. Six days."

Daniel frowned at the words, and Kawalsky stopped.

"Doctor Jackson?"

"Sorry," the archeologist responded faintly. "For a moment there...thought something came to mind..." He sighed. "Can't seem to concentrate long enough for me to understand." He slumped, back to the wall, his hand making small circles massaging his forehead.

Kawalsky grimaced. "Yeah. I heard the headaches are pretty bad." At Daniel's small laugh, he amended. "Okay, a lot bad." He eyed the room. He wished he had more neuar to offer Daniel. They would have at least eased the pain until the effects wore off, but the supply they had was rationed to last Dan O'Neill a few more months...if he had that long.

"Anyway...When yo...when Dan got recaptured, they were literally making the announcements the same day about how Ra was returning in two weeks to do the execution. Commander wouldn't let us go after him. Suspected it was a trap to find out who were our agents on the inside. Took us nearly a week to find out where Dan was moved. John was climbing the walls. But then we found out he was on one of Seth's commander's ships. Solid defenses. Commander wouldn't let him go."

"Why?" Daniel asked faintly. Then he corrected himself. "No, I can see where she might find it a risk. He shouldn't have gone back for one person. He might have been captured and—"

"Read her mind exactly," the captain grumbled. "Like a damn record. She didn't like it either, but she had other priorities to consider as well. John was on her back for days, and it was the same old thing. No, we can't take the risk. No, you can't expose your position. No, we can't risk the informant."

"Jolinar?"

"Yeah. She was inside for the past four years, bouncing from one general's bedside to another. This was the closest she'd ever been to Ra. Jermak and Seth were Ra's left and right arm for this planet."

"And now she's here," Daniel added. He paused, thinking. "What are you guys going to do? With Jolinar on the outside, you have no spy on Jermak's ship."

"Beats the hell out of me. She might try and find another way in." Kawalsky shrugged. Scowling at the room's surroundings, he clapped his hands loudly on his knees. "Hell, as for us, we'll probably go back to raiding the supply runs and getting our people out of here."

"Out of here?"

"We've been attacking the mines, getting as many as we could to safe havens located on Machello's map."

Daniel fell silent.

"You know, I'm supposed to be asking you questions, Doctor Jackson." Kawalsky let out his breath in a whoosh. "Damn if that didn't sound weird!"

"Excuse me?"

"Doctor Jackson. Shit. Just can't hear myself saying it right."

Daniel lifted his head towards Kawalsky. "I take it you and Dan were close?"

"Known him since John came back from his first tour. John talked about him and his family a lot."

"Oh."

Kawalsky studied the man before him. "I take it you and this colonel ain't related."

"Er...no...we work together under the same project."

"Project?"

"Stargate project." Daniel waved his hand around the room. "This isn't happening in my reality."

"Huh," Kawalsky grunted.

Daniel fidgeted. Abruptly, he hissed, doubling over.

Kawalsky was out of his seat in a flash. "You okay?"

"N-no..." Daniel grated out. "Cramps..." He started when he felt a hand on his back going up and down.

"Easy," Kawalsky soothed. "It'll be a day or so, but everything should pass."

Daniel raised his head towards him. "Should?"

The hand stopped. "Yeah...I mean...will. There's just only a small chance that maybe—"

"How small of a chance are we talking about?" Daniel interrupted.

Daniel could hear the captain fidgeting in his seat. "I don't know. Not many lasted as long as you have. But then again, we never got to them that quickly before and—"

"What happened to the others?"

Again silence.

"Kawalsky?"

The captain cleared his throat, his voice gruff. "They never made it. Usually died within hours."

Daniel swallowed. "Oh." He took a deep, shuddering breath.

"So there's a chance I may not really get my sight back."

Kawalsky gazed back at the trembling back as Daniel tried to sit up straight again. He closed his eyes briefly and hoarsely answered him. "Yeah".

The room was silent as Daniel sat there breathing in and out, Kawalsky unable to ask any more questions, walls humming from the reactors next door. Then finally, Daniel sat up straighter with effort, ran a shaky hand through his short hair and sadly smiled.

"So what...what was your next question?"


	23. Chapter 22

**AUTHOR'S NOTE : **Sorry, guys. I think there will be a slight delay for the next few chapters. Someone's helping me type this right now. The next 4 chapters for some reason lost all its formating so I need to go back and fix this. As some of you know, it's going to be an unusually laborious task for me. But I promise I'll do my best to get those fixed and formated in a day. So until then, you folks have been great. Thank you for the reviews!

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**CHAPTER TWENTY TWO**

Sitting in the cramped office quarters, Sam Hansen stared at the photo in her hands. The creases from it being folded over and over again marred the picture with aging yellow lines, slashing across two faces as they smiled into the camera, resplendent in their dress uniforms.

It was an old photo by her standards. Old since it was taken a few months before the invasion. Old because she wouldn't ever be able to take another one like it again. So it became rare, one of its kind, the only reminder left of the man she had to listen to die.

_"Gold fox. Gold fox. This is Hawk leader. I'd like to order a large pizza with extra olives, pepperoni and mushrooms. Can you deliver? Over."_

_Shaking her head, Sam took the comm, ignoring the amused looks on the other officers' faces. "Very funny, Jonas." Seated in front of the communications console of the SSN-688 sub's control room, she glared at the blinking lights inside the enormous boat, an old patriot of the Cold War, bobbing up and down in a carved out hole within an Antarctica cave. She checked the monitors once more. _

_General George Hammond reached over and snagged the mike from her. He scowled at the radio. "Colonel Hansen?"_

_She could hear Jonas snap to attention. "Sir!"_

_Sighing, Hammond gave her a smile, finger to his lips as he winked. "Son, we're on red alert, guarding both Stargates. What are you doing on this secured line?"_

_"Uh, well, sir...I-I was giving my progress report to my wife...sir..."_

_"I see. You are aware of the fact that Commander Hansen is only on loan from NASA for this joint venture?" Hammond gave her a warning look as she tried not to snicker._

_Jonas was stammering at this point. "Sorry, General. Uh...this is Alpha base reporting status. All's clear in—"_

_"As you were, Colonel. As you were," Hammond cut him off, still smiling. He coughed awkwardly and left the control room for the bridge above. She could tell though that the general was just as excited about the UN summit as everyone else was. It looked like Earth was going to have their first real ally from afar. _

_Sam smiled towards the radio as well, hearing Jonas sigh audibly. _

_"Man...I thought I was done for!" _

_"You shouldn't have popped on the radio waves with that," scolded Sam. "You should be watching the President and the other leaders."_

_"We've got a group equivalent of a small army here for that, Goldilocks. Besides, after this gig, I'm stepping up as liaison for ET up there! Give me a break. I'm having a moment, Sam."_

_"Keep goofing off_ _on the radio like that and maybe Maybourne will hear you next time."_

_Jonas made a choking sound at the possibility. "Would have taken my eagles for sure! I'm just lucky Hammond is too happy to get rid of me from Cheyenne soon. I swear he wept for joy when I handed in my resignation notice."_

_Laughing, she nodded to herself. "You're lucky he's in a very good mood. It's a nice change after being on the edge the whole month watching our extraterrestrial visitors."_

_"Visitors, shisitors." Jonas groused. "Aliens, Sam. Can't you just call them aliens? You people at NASA have to get so damn scientific."_

_"Isn't that why you married me?" Sam teased, ignoring the curious looks from nearby staff. After a month of missing each other due to conflicting meetings, she couldn't bring herself to make the conversation short. "Wasn't it for my brain?"_

_"Hell, I thought it was for—"_

_"General Hammond!" A young looking airman came running up the stairs to the upper level. She could hear him from all the way back in the berthing area. "General Hammond!"_

_Looking up, she saw the red-faced soldier was panting despite the short distance in the sub. Hammond climbed down the ladder, back to the forward compartment in an instant. He arched an eyebrow at the soldier._

_"I was checking the radio over at the other boat with General Maybourne's team about the summit..." the airman gasped out. "They were talking with the aliens over at DC...and...and the radio went dead."_

_Hammond frowned. He clicked on the radio. "Colonel, you getting anything on your side?"_

_She could hear Jonas was audibly concerned. "No, sir. We were getting regular reports..." the radio crackled, "but they've just stopped here, too...could be our satellite went over a blind spot or something...let you know...second..." Her husband's voice faded in and out._

_She clutched the radio a little tighter and opened her mouth to ask the general, but Hammond was already gone. He was going up the ladder. She could hear him calling out into the cave._

_"Harry! Have you got a signal back yet on your side?" Hammond grunted when the tinny far away answer came back negative. _

_Sam stared at the radio. "Sir, do you think...?" she started as he came back down to the control room. _

_"Let's not hit the panic button yet," Hammond said, his hand up to stop any worried questions. _

_Nodding, she swallowed as the radio's static went on for a long time. The rest of the crew, having heard the airman's flustered report, were standing around, frozen in their tracks._

_Suddenly, Jonas' voice came back on, steady and firm. "I am getting no visual confirmation from DC, General." He paused. "Shall I ring in the crew to return to base?"_

_Hammond stood there, arms crossed, brow furrowed. _

_"Sir?" Jonas was asking again, the concern audible in his voice despite the growing static over their line._

_"Do it," Hammond said. "Simmons!" He beckoned a pale, nervous looking soldier from the back of the crowd. "Get Maybourne to search for any signal. Someone must still be broadcasting. We haven't gotten any word from DC or the Pentagon. We can't act without a target to aim for."_

_Simmons mutely nodded, and he was out of the sub like a shot, scrambling to the adjacent submarine._

_"Major, switch frequencies." He spoke into the radio once more. "Hansen, get back on the line in five minutes. False alarm or not, run contingency B as is. Let's not take any chances. I'd rather be embarrassed than dead."_

_"B, sir?" someone stammered from the back of the room._

_"Evacuation," Hammond said as he exited the sub. "Let's go, people! Television, radio, anything. I want to know what's going on!" Already, the alarms went out as ensigns leaped for their radios, dispatching emergency messages to their various bases._

_"Keep an ear open for me, Sammy," Jonas said softly before he shut off the line to check his end._

_Sitting there, staring at the meter still, she found she couldn't let go of the radio. It was just as well. She began experimenting with the dial, trying for anything—public radio, military channels, police channels, even CB on their other equipment. _

_"Anything yet?" Hammond asked quietly. Sam shook her head. _

_"Should I give Alpha base a call now, sir?" she asked hopefully, referring to Cheyenne, which had never felt so far away before._

_"I said five minutes, Commander. He's still got two more."_

_A shiver went down her back. It was different to the one that always coursed down her spine whenever she was up in space, looking down on Earth in the USS Endeavor. This one made her knees knock and her palms sweaty. _

_The radio crackled into life ahead of schedule, and everyone jumped. The radio sounded shrill, the background noise was deafening._

_"Jonas?" Sam leaned forward, gripping the receiver in her hands. _

_He was shouting above the din. She could imagine him pressed close to the mouthpiece. "...Right above us...abort Evac procedures to Cheyenne...tell them to abort! Sammy, you have to dive!"_

_"What?" Sam exclaimed, out of her seat just as the officer of the deck hollered about sighting three UFOs outside their location about ten clicks. She could hear the radar screaming around her, the hatches slamming shut over the bridge as the men raced down to their stations._

_"I'm aborting the Evac! There's no time! Yank the power for the Stargate and dive, damn it! They're right above us! They may be heading your way! Twenty flying attack ships sighted heading for the West coast! I'm sending our leaders through to..." The radio squawked as something overhead flew past their location with a boom. She could hear the cave vibrate. "...thirty one, fifteen..."_

_Hammond came up from behind her, grabbing the radio from her hands. "Colonel! I didn't get the seven symbols! Repeat!"_

_"They're right on top...of us..." Jonas' transmission was fading fast, the background noise rising to a combined chaos. "They're...drilling through...starting self destruct codes...repeat...initiating self...destruct..."_

_"Jonas!" She gripped the mike with both hands, knuckles white. "The symbols! What are the symbols—"_

_The radio suddenly screamed with feedback, a sound of metal grinding together._

_"General Hammond! Radar shows three bogies, ETA five minutes!"_

_"Man the hatches! I want this boat under now!" The officer of the deck was yanking down the periscope, Hammond grabbing hold of a handle above him. "Steinbeck, have engineering flood the ballast tanks. I want motors in silent mode!"_

_"Four minutes!"_

_"Jonas..." Sam shook the mike as if it would reconnect again._

_"Aux base...this is Alpha..." Jonas was shouting into the radio as voices yelling in the background became clear. _

_Hammond yanked a pair of headphones and literally slapped them over her head, grabbing a pair for himself. The sounds of battle were abruptly cut off from everyone's listening range._

_"Alpha...under attack...We got...gate activated...all went through...repeat...all went through..."_

_"Jonas...we didn't get the symbols! Can you copy?" Sam looked up at the general anxiously. "They don't seem to be receiving us, sir."_

_"I heard an explosion...their communications must be down," Hammond turned to the sub captain, pointing to the bridge and circling his finger towards the ground._

_"Okay, people," the captain barked. "We are diving. Spread the word. No PA announcements. Verbal only. We are heading for a dive!"_

_"Ballast flooding!"_

_"Environmentals are green, sir!"_

_"Three minutes and closing!"_

_Sam tried to ignore the shouting behind her as the boat shivered, her engines beginning to stir. "Jonas...this is Los Angeles class Miro six...calling Alpha base...anyone picking up this communication, please respond!" _

_She could hear Jonas, shouting in the background, the static here for one second, gone the next. The alarms back there were wailing, sounds of something high pitched enveloping the transmission. But she could hear two things distinctively._

_She could hear the Stargate open._

_And she could hear the countdown._

_"...forty seconds and counting...thirty nine...thirty eight..."_

_"Can anyone...hear us...there?" Jonas was back yelling on the phone to her. But he couldn't hear her reply. Cursing, perhaps suspecting the line was down, he yelled to the others to go through._

_"Twenty nine...twenty eight... "_

_"The Franklin is submerged, sir!" one of the ensigns shouted as the officer of the deck yanked down the periscope. The captain swore under his breath._

_"Can't see anything inside this cavern. Dive one hundred and away from this site then float to surface for a visual."_

_"Aye, sir."_

_"Wait, we need this line open for Cheyenne!" Hammond pointed out._

_"We don't know what is out there except for that last visual from our man outside. They may have sensors that can read through all this ice. We have to dive!"_

_Sam was holding onto both sides of her headset. She could hear a faint explosion in the background. Sharp sounds of gunfire were heard through the line. _

_"Eleven seconds..." the mechanical voice droned in the background of the transmission._

_"Jonas, get out of there..." Sam grated. She didn't even feel the boat lowering, the walls trembling as it submerged. She was trying to will her voice to go through to his end. "Leave. You have eleven seconds."_

_Suddenly, sub and base all sounded the same as she heard more gunfire and the strange whine of alien weapon fire. A soft grunt was audible as a target was obtained. She could hear someone falling in the ground._

_"Bogies overhead, sir."_

_"Nine seconds..."_

_"Jonas," Sam whispered._

_"No visual yet, Captain."_

_"Eight seconds..."_

_Someone fumbled for the radio again and Sam sat up straighter._

_"...ammy..." It was Jonas._

_"Seven seconds."_

_"General Hammond, we're reading ten more ships above surface on radar, passing the skies above us. They seem to be searching all surfaces for anything. We can't resurface after we dive."_

_"Six..."_

_"...love you..."_

_"Five..."_

_"Jonas...get up..."_

_"Four..."_

_"General Hammond?"_

_"Three..."_

_"Go for the dive, Captain...get us down deep."_

_"Get up, Jonas. Damn you, get up. There's still time..."_

_"Two..."_

_"I'm sorry, S-sammy..."_

_"On—"_

_Sammy choked as her headset went dead. She looked up and saw Hammond's face as he pulled off his headset._

_"Sirs," a somber voice called out from the control room. "All communications from Cheyenne are gone. We can't reach Alpha base."_

_Sam dropped her headset and hid her face in her cupped hands._

A timid knock on the door brought her eyes up, her hand over the photo. Standing in the doorway of her officer's quarters, was James from Torpedoes. The dark skinned man saluted sharply in his usual efficient way, which she returned.

"I have Captain O'Neill here to speak with you, sir."

She nodded, not bothering with making a correction on the rank. "Let him in, and close the door behind you."

"Yes, sir. Captain?" James motioned to someone next to him, giving the newcomer an odd look up and down as if noticing something different about him. Unable to pinpoint the questionable cause, James gestured towards the door before maneuvering his huge bulk around him to leave.

Sam's eyes narrowed as O'Neill walked in, head ducking under the door as he entered.

Brown eyes dark as coals, bored into her face; she bristled. He looked like he was expecting her to salute him. Posture straight, the odd peppering gray hair, he looked much sterner than the O'Neill she was accustomed to, the one who disregarded her orders and left with Cromwell on the damned suicide mission.

She got up, still without a word and circled him, examining the soldier with close scrutiny, noting the rigid back. He looked like John O'Neill, stood like John O'Neill, but his eyes...

The brooding she was used to seeing lurking in John's eyes was gone. What she found surprised her—open challenge, yet enough respect for the person standing in front of him to not start rudely flouting her authority. He knew her rank, knew what she was fighting for, and respected her for it.

She found herself at a loss as to how to respond to it.

"So...you're a colonel in your reality," was the only thing she could think of.

This O'Neill arched an eyebrow at her, as if surprised to see her accept the idea that he was from an alternate universe.

"Don't think this means we're friends now," Hansen warned, walking back to her desk, not offering him a seat. "Your _claims_ as the Tok'ra informed us, sounds very science fiction, Colonel O'Neill."

"And an alien invasion isn't?" he blurted out in disbelief.

She ignored the outburst as she sat down. Seeing his eyes wander over to the picture on the desk, dark eyes widening, she slammed her fist down over it, a lot harder than expected. She left her fist over the photo, glaring at him silently, daring him to utter a word about the picture.

"Jonas Hansen?" he asked quietly.

She blinked. Unexpectedly, he did take the dare. So she didn't have a sharp retort for him. She merely nodded, pulling her hand away from it.

A regretful look passed over his features, changing the face she knew as John O'Neill to something different.

For the first time, she really believed this was a different John O'Neill.

"How did you get here?" she asked brusquely, shoving aside her amazement. She did have her priorities, after all.

"Can I sit down first?" he replied archly.

She could feel her hackles rising again. Apparently, this O'Neill had the same...manners as the one she knew. But before she could bark at him, she noticed him grimacing, left shoulder rotating under the baggy jumpsuit and remembered the report the medical corpsman had forwarded to her. Lashes, about maybe a dozen, one or two needing a few stitches. With hardly any pain relievers left from their last raid, he was overdue for one right now.

So she waved curtly towards the chair tucked behind the crates in the room.

He gave her a brief smile, dragging the chair close to her desk and sat down with a sigh. Sam remembered his other companion.

"How's your friend?" she asked. With a little irritation, she noted the surprise on his face at the question.

"He's doing okay...as can be expected." O'Neill scanned the room, and she knew he was making comparisons with his reality. She felt herself needing to defend the vessel.

"We use what we can get, Colonel," she grated. Gesturing at the walls, she glared at him. "I'm sure this isn't up to your standards back in your reality, but—"

O'Neill raised a hand to stop her. "I was just looking, okay? Just looking."

"I suppose you have a much more advanced system in your reality?"

Shrugging, O'Neill didn't sound like he was bragging. "We get by. We're adapting. Sure we want the big nasty guns, but we're getting by so far."

She felt her anger rising again, shoulders tensing into rock. "Getting by...This from a man who has generously offered my captain everything he needs to fight against Ra?"

"We've beaten him before, Commander. I'm not trying to shoot down your efforts. I'm just thinking our experience would benefit your world." He gazed back at her, no sneer on his lips, only understanding. "We've seen what Ra can do, and I see what he's doing to all of you. I just want to see another Goa'uld take a hike."

Clenching her jaw, she nodded curtly. "Fine. But you didn't answer my previous question, colonel."

He sighed, rubbing his face with hands, oddly looking older than the Captain O'Neill she'd often spied sitting by his brother during a visit. And she felt a little of the tension in her shoulders going.

"How do I start?" He grinned ruefully. "A little over three days ago, my team and I were checking out this little planet, nice place, could use a little paint job though, called P9H-521..."

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Coming back through the Stargate, Carter glumly dropped her backpack on the ramp as others silently filed around her.

"Anything?" the general asked, but he could tell from the grim face of Captain O'Neill behind her that the day was fruitless.

"We thought we'd better take a break. Try in a few hours, sir." Carter looked guilty though, as if taking a break was the wrong thing to do right now.

Hammond nodded though. "Good idea. You've been at it for over eight hours. Get a few hours sleep, and try again. We'll still have teams over there patrolling the chambers in case Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson return on their own."

"Yes, sir." Carter bent down to grab her bag and spied John over her shoulder. Appearing like she was remembering something else, she straightened up again.

"How's Doctor O'Neill doing, sir?"

Hammond hesitated, surprised that Carter was the one asking, not John O'Neill. "He's in Doctor Jackson's office—"

"Again?" John interrupted, stepping forward with a frown. "Didn't he get any rest? Was he having trouble sleeping?"

The general shook his head. "He just woke up before and asked Teal'c to take him to Doctor Jackson's office. He wanted to try and read the tablet once more."

John only nodded.

"I do need Teal'c to help me in the lab," Carter jumped in. It wasn't really true, but she also knew the Jaffa would want to know of the progress if any, they had made to get them back.

"Excuse me, General, Major." John finally walked down the ramp, backpack still over his shoulder. He wasn't running though. Walking as if still thinking it over, John left the embarkation room barely uttering a word.

"Sir?" Carter asked, confused as she stared at John's retreating back.

Hammond pursed his lips. "Nothing that concerns us, Major." He studied Carter up and down. "You look tired. We need you at a hundred percent for this. Give yourself a few hours rest. We'll send you back in six hours."

Carter opened her mouth to protest, but her shoulders slumped. Then, standing up higher, pushing her shoulders back again, she replied, "Yes, sir," and walked down the ramp.

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Exhausted, John told himself he was too tired to go and check on Dan. That the day of useless activity was draining. So he wandered until he found himself back in the so-called VIP room again. Nodding to the guard standing outside the door, he entered the room and found, to mixed emotions, an untouched lunch tray; Dan wasn't back yet.

Shoulders slumping, he went over to the couch, his back curving as he lowered himself onto the sofa. Sitting on the couch, staring at the rumpled covers on the bed, he found himself more tired than he had ever been but couldn't close his eyes to rest. He eased his head back to rest on the top of the couch and stared at the ceiling.

Touching the wire bracelet snug on his wrist, still looking up, he thought of his counterpart. He could still see the grim determination on the man's face and thought how he never saw his own face do that. He wondered if Jack O'Neill was watching over his friend right now.

He wondered if Jack O'Neill was feeling just as helpless as he did now.

Helpless.

That was how he was feeling right now.

Utterly, totally, helpless.

_The routine was painstaking. Complete the scene and everyone convene to read charts, graphs, and readouts- making comparisons of past data to present data, talking in too many syllables that made one's teeth ache. Then an hour later, they were back at it again._

_And again._

_And again._

_John watched as the cumbersome machine rolled through, and he couldn't help but think bitterly, that hours before, it had broken down, forcing him to leave and help them._

_John clenched the remote so hard he had to look down and make sure it was still in one piece. He looked up; the wall gone with the rover in the center of the portal. Then, as he had countless times before, he jiggled the controls and signaled the rover to return._

_Inch by inch, gradually coming through, the rover made not one sound. It was as quiet as the other one was before. Quiet enough that Jack O'Neill must have been able to hear every word of Daniel and John's conversation behind him._

_The one where he told Daniel it didn't matter if his family was out there. The one where he reminded Daniel none too gently that for all his efforts, all his troubles, his wife was still dead._

_The one where Daniel gave him this look._

_The look of grief._

_The one Dan gave him when they had to leave Frank._

_The one when he told Dan about Johnson, the professor who taught him linguistics, Ernest, and Catherine, the woman who John thought started it all._

_After that look, John was supposed to tell Dan it'd be okay, their deaths weren't for nothing, and the war would be over soon. _

_But he couldn't do it. When Daniel Jackson gave him the same look, John ran._

_He turned his back, and Daniel paid._

_"Captain? Get ready to turn back to the platform," Carter called out. "Timing energy readings from departure...now."_

_On cue, he turned around as Jack O'Neill had, walking over to Daniel as he was with Ferretti right now. And out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw himself running, like a coward, abandoning them to head back to the other side to help. _

_"Captain?" Carter could be heard from across the room, puzzled why he stopped not at the same spot pointed out to him, rather, two feet away, gawking at the portal._

_John shook his head and got on the platform, joining Ferretti and again, the techs off the sidelines were taking measurements, calling out numbers he didn't give a shit about. _

_"Okay, Ferretti!" Carter called out. "Begin!"_

_"Here we go again," the major muttered and sprinted off the platform, jogging briskly to the wall as if to touch it. His boots went louder and louder then softer and softer as he went closer to the wall._

_He could see Daniel heading for it, the progress going into slow motion in front of his eyes, and he knew what was coming next. He could feel the expectation fleshing out into goosebumps along his arms, and one thought screamed in his mind. He could stop this! He could change this!_

_As he heard the staff weapon fire, he shouted, probably surprising everyone. He knew he must have surprised Daniel. He spun around just as John tackled him, too startled to even give out a complete yelp as John pushed him out of the way, slamming him to the ground, just as the energy bolt screeched past their heads and into the..._

_Paper target. It exploded like the others, raining charred paper confetti over their heads._

_And the fog lifted from his eyes. _

_"Captain O'Neill? Ferretti?" Carter was running towards him before he remembered and looked down._

_Pinned under his bulk, cap over his wide eyes, Ferretti looked stunned and embarrassed, unsure how to react. Flat on his stomach, he couldn't even roll out from under John. So Ferretti cleared his throat as best he could and turned his head so he could see him._

_"Uh...Captain?"_

_John managed a "Yeah?" It wasn't Dan. No...it wasn't Daniel. It was neither of them. He didn't save a single soul._

_"Uh...I'm flattered and everything...but...you can let me up now," Ferretti joked weakly, waving a hand to his teammates. "I'm okay. A little flat, but okay."_

_John rose back up to his feet, a sinking feeling in his stomach as he realized he should have done this before like a dozen other things, and then none of this would have happened or be necessary. None of this._

He rubbed his face with both hands and could feel the rough bristles of his cheeks, unshaven, coarse, rough, unkempt.

Abruptly, he snarled, and his arm whipped out, hitting the tray on the end table within swinging reach. Forks and knives flew like shards, glimmering only once before crashing to the floor. The cover clanged with the metal circlet on his wrist, and it sounded like funeral bells as metal struck metal before it flew across to the door, the dinner plate shattering on impact on the floor, and the glass of water tumbling down, spilling its contents like blood.

The room finally looked like everything else happening in his world.

The door flew open when the guard heard the commotion. When all he saw was John staring at the ceiling, the guard paused.

"Sir?"

"I dropped my tray," John said dully, staring at the ceiling. "Is the canteen still open?"

The guard hesitated. "Uh, yes, sir. Shall I get another—"

"No," John rose up to his full length. "That's okay. I'll go get one myself." He walked across to the door, pretending not to notice as the guard shuffled, unsure. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the guard give the room another glance.

"Leave it," he said brusquely before the guard could grab the wall phone and ask for cleanup.

The guard, hand on phone, paused just for a second before he went ahead and picked up the phone.

"I said LEAVE IT!"

Startled, the guard's fingers loosened, and the phone dropped. Nearby soldiers spun in their places, frozen in their tracks. They all stared at John.

Glaring at them, daring them to say something, he stalked away.

After a few twists and turns with people dodging his warpath, he found himself outside Daniel Jackson's office. Slowing down in front of the partly opened door, John was about to enter when he spied Teal'c sitting on a stool, his back blocking what little view the crack had to offer.

"Perhaps you should rest."

"I just need a few more minutes to reread the entire thing," a tired voice replied.

John stood by the doorway, back to the wall, eyes straight forward. He could hear his brother sigh heavily before coughing took over. Tensing, he wanted to rush in until he heard Teal'c stand.

"No. I'm fine, Teal'c," Dan was telling the Jaffa. "Please...just stay where you are."

"I do not understand." Teal'c sounded puzzled. "I am not familiar with Machello's devices as Major Carter is. She has returned and I am certain would be willing to assist you."

"I don't need help with this. I know I can translate what I can from here. I can't decipher the coded stuff, but there are vague texts hidden in the back. Maybe one of which would reveal the second half of this puzzle." Dan paused. "I just need the company. Not much conversation, mind you. Just knowing...someone else is here...and is not an enemy."

Teal'c responded without hesitation. "I am not...I regard myself as an ally if you would allow me, Dan O'Neill."

John closed his eyes as he listened. He could imagine his brother was probably smiling.

"Thank you, Teal'c." Dan laughed. "I never thought I would see the day I would become a friend to a Jaffa. I mean...I knew some who were forced into service...but they thought...he didn't have a choice. He—they thought they were p-protecting their families."

"I was once a Jaffa," Teal'c for some reason, decided to remind Dan. John's jaw clenched.

"I know...I know...all the more I really wouldn't mind you staying...it...helps me..." Dan hedged.

Teal'c was silent, perhaps puzzled by the words.

"I used to...sit in the dark on...on Ra's ship...thinking I was alone. Used to try and stand, try to feel my way around the cell, get my bearings..." Dan swallowed audibly. "Then find out I wasn't alone. It's a game they like to play. Stick a _re'klya_ in a room, move the stuff around and watch as they stumble over things, falling, pulling food away, moving the glasses of water. And...and you never knew they were there. They were so quiet. So quiet so you began to think you were going insane, everything was not what it seemed..." His voice was distant, sounding very far away. John choked at the words, tempted to leave so he wouldn't hear any more. "I couldn't tell who was there, and when I tried to listen, all I could hear was their breathing and I c-couldn't tell if they were friend or foe..." Dan was gasping now, and John could hear Teal'c walking over.

"Remain calm," Teal'c ordered over Dan's rasping. "You are among friends, your brother—"

Dan laughed bitterly. "I don't see him around, do you?"

John's heart slammed down to the pit of his stomach, and he felt his knees wobble.

"And we both know why," Dan grated out.

_Because it's my fault you're sitting in the dark_, John closed his eyes, his fists trembling as they grew tighter and tighter against his sides.

"God I just want this to be over..." Dan moaned softly. John didn't look at the door anymore, but he could hear his brother leaning into the chair. "I'm so tired. So god damn tired...I just want to sleep..."

"I can accompany you back to your room," Teal'c offered.

Dan laughed once more. It sounded harsh, cruel; none of the light humor Dan had in his voice was evident. "Why bother?" Breathing deeply, Dan whispered so low, John almost didn't catch what he was saying.

"I'll be sleeping sooner or later. I'd rather later..."

The two men inside fell silent. John slid to the floor, listening to the room, the soft shuddering breaths his brother was taking, and John felt something crumble inside.

Dan was dying.

And all the medicine, all the wars John could battle, could never change that fact.

His brother was dying.

And it was all his fault.

John got up shakily and staggered away from the room. He leaned against the wall a few feet away and took a deep breath. His eyes glinted with renewed determination.

He had to go back now. The war had to be finished. It had to be won. Then...then...

John turned back towards the room.

Then when it was all over, John would make sure he stayed with Dan, whether he wanted him to or not. There was a cure out there. There had to be, and John was going to make sure Dan stayed alive long enough to get it.


	24. Chapter 23

**CHAPTER TWENTY THREE**

Jack watched Sam Hansen slowly circle around his seat, icy blue eyes glued to anywhere but his face. He sat up straighter, ignoring his back as it rubbed raw against the coarse borrowed flightsuit and squared his shoulders for the assault. He returned her glare, wondering why it bothered him that she looked at him with such mistrust.

"So...this..." Hansen waved lazily at the bracelet he was wearing, "jewelry is what's stopping you guys from breaking down at a molecular level because of your little...reality trip?"

"It's not jewelry," grated Jack. He was beginning to wish he'd woken Daniel up after all and insisted on him coming. The archeologist seemed to sway the natives better than he could. Jack could see the bull's eye painted on his chest the minute Hansen laid eyes on him. "From what I'm told, they're the only things preventing the forty-eight hour breakdown." His left eye twitched as he tried to calm down. "They're not jewelry." He absently rubbed a thumb on his wrist while tracking her movements as she headed towards her desk.

"Colonel, I call them like I see them." She sat on the edge of her desk, crossing her arms. "So you guys decided to play Salvation Army, come in with your caravan of hope before Hathor decided to pick you up as a souvenir?"

Jack reeled in his temper and curtly replied, "Something like that."

"What did you tell them? From what I can see of your condition, they didn't exactly invite you over for tea." The commander jumped in with yet another question. "Do they know you are from another reality?"

Clenching his jaw, matching the grim expression on Hansen's face, he forced out a "No". He stared right at her. "We came through the portal, got caught, and your man got us out."

"What of your base?" she shot back.

Jack's eyes narrowed. "What of it?"

"Is anyone coming after you? Are there more strays we have to worry about?"

Bristling, Jack forced himself to stay seated. "No...strays. My team was still on the other side when we were forced to reset the device. I don't know if they figured out how we did it yet, but yeah, they may come after us."

Hansen studied him for a long moment before pointing out, "Or they may blow the thing up to make sure Ra doesn't come after them."

Jack grimaced. The possibility had occurred to him. He'd worry about it if it really came to that later.

The commander scowled at him, looking like she was hoping he would dismiss the likelihood. She contemplated him and said in a measured tone, "We're a ragtag team, Colonel. We barely have enough for ourselves. And if you do get stranded back here with us—"

"If we get back to that world and use the portal, we won't get left behind. And if we do get back, we can use the Asgard device I was telling you about to help you guys. And if they come, and I know they will, we can forward you more supplies to help you get started on rebuilding."

She stared at him, the corner of her mouth twitching. "That's a lot of ifs, Colonel."

"Better than nevers."

"Huh," Hansen grunted. She cocked her head to the side, the scar more predominant now even against the weak lighting. "Let me see if I can get this straight...You want me to drop our missions and the plans we had to infiltrate Ra's stockade when he arrives in six...no...make that a little over five days now to escort you home in hopes of getting this miracle hard drive device thing to contact even more aliens to come here?" She glowered at him. "Am I correct?"

Jack pressed his mouth to a thin line and said nothing.

Hansen sighed, shaking her head as she scratched her cheek absently with an index finger. Jack averted his eyes. "Colonel, you have to admit there are a lot of holes in your idea."

"And how were you going to go about it?" he countered.

For a moment, she looked like she wasn't going to answer. "We have maybe thirty tons of plastique explosives that we're going to use to detonate inside his compound while another team gets on Jermak's ship. We blow the shields, get in and take over the ship."

"Plastique?" echoed Jack. "No nukes?"

Glowering at him, Hansen replied tightly. "The only nuclear anything we have, Colonel, is what's running these boats and many more like them lurking deep in the Pacific." She tapped the table behind her. "Once Ra is gone, the scavengers are sure to come to squeeze us dry. Those battleships will ensure our planet stays free permanently."

Jack fell silent for a moment, deep in thought.

"Unless you were planning to offer a few you just happen to have lying around," she drawled, sounding oddly like something he would say. The colonel gave her a startled look. "Seeing you people are so advanced and everything."

Scowling, he refused to reply to that last biting remark.

"How are you going to get in?" Jack pointed out. "Dan O'Neill has the first tablet, and it may have clues to the second. From what I hear, you can't even get in the front door of Ra's chambers without it."

Jack's voice was soft yet firm. "Get me and Daniel back home, and I promise you, you will get all the assistance we can spare. The Asgards can help. The Asgards _will _help. They did for us. They did for another reality." Jack stood. "But to do that, we have to get back home." He placed a hand flat against his own chest. "My home."

Hansen stared at him, scanning his face. The colonel's gaze was equal in intensity as he stood there under her scrutiny.

"Let me talk to my superiors." She went around her desk to sit down again, pulling out a small palm sized marble which Jack recognized as a communication globe. Clearing her throat to draw his notice, she motioned towards her room. "They're coming as we speak. I've told them about your_ situation _and who you are. I'll get on the line for this and see what they have to say when they arrive."

Jack nodded. "Thank you."

The commander considered him sideways with narrowed eyes, darkened to almost black. "Colonel...I'd better not be making a mistake," she warned. "I wouldn't be the only one paying for an error in judgment. I have worlds of refugees depending on everything we do here on Earth."

Gazing back steadily at her, the doubt in her eyes disconcerting to behold, Jack nodded. "You'll have to trust me on this."

"Apparently, from what you told me, my...other me trusted you implicitly?"

Jack's mouth twitched to a wry smile. "I like to think so."

She waved him off, dismissing him with an abrupt flick of her hand. He caught a glimpse of a wedding ring before her hand fell back to her side. "Let's hope the record stands for this reality too then. I'll send for you later." Her eyebrow rose when she saw he wasn't moving. She pursed her lips into a scowl. "Dismissed."

Jack countered with his own eyebrow before drawling, "Aye, ma'am," and strode out as if he owned the place.

"Smart ass," she muttered with a frown at his departing back. Sitting back in her chair, she stared at the photo she had, one hand going up absently to stroke the white scar she knew was still there, her finger on the other stroking the faded image of a broadly grinning man.

"Tell me what to do, Jonas," she murmured, the anger in her eyes dissipating, fading the blue to a sad milky gray. "I spent more time up in space than in war until now. Tell me what to do."

He never replied. She really missed his voice. Missed the way he said her name. She missed everything about him. Even the arguments they had during their engagement. Everything. She played their few short months of marriage before the invasion over and over again in her mind, but they were already dim in clarity. She hated the fact her memory of him was now replaced by another that stood out forever in her nightmares.

_He screamed incoherently, arms swinging weakly, no longer having the strength to fight the enemy he thought was around him._

_Staring at him with dismay, she stepped away from Jonas, hand on her right cheek, the blood running down from torn flesh after Jonas had grabbed the fork she was using to feed him and slashed out. He had barely missed her eye._

_Jonas had survived the explosion in Alpha base in Cheyenne that should have piled rubble high over the Stargate. Somehow, they had gotten him out before all hell broke loose. _

_Silver round discs framed his sunken, unshaven face. His limbs thin, gaunt and trembling. He couldn't hear her, couldn't see her. All he felt was pain, screaming wildly on contact with her tears. He didn't even realize he nearly stabbed a fork through her head when she tried to feed him. _

_Jonas Hansen was no longer the man she knew, loved, and married._

_It was ironic. So god damn ironic. When they had first met, he was so stressed out from the service, he was that close to putting a gun to his head._

_And now, she was going to do it for him._

_"Commander." Captain Kawalsky was the only one remaining by the door after he shooed everyone else out. "James should be returning in the other sub soon. He might have gotten more medical supplies. He could…"_

_She didn't answer him. She was watching Jonas curl up under the bed board, yelling in pain and in warning to his unseen, unheard enemy to stay away from him. _

_"Got a transmission from John's brother Dan. He translated the wiretap. Looks like they're moving our resources through a battleship's Stargate. There may be something we can take to give Colonel Hansen and..." he paused. "And...Dan's been asking me again if we've heard anything at all about John. He's been gone over a month now. Commander, I know this isn't the right time to ask you, but he did come in as a translator for us in exchange for some news about John O'Neill, and we haven't given him so much as a clue—"_

_"Captain, give me your gun." Sam heard everything he said. She would process it later. She couldn't right now while watching Jonas deteriorate in front of her. _

_Kawalsky stepped back. "Sir, you don't mean...James is coming back soon. He might be able to—"_

_"Give...me...the...gun." She turned to look at the sympathetic face of her captain. _

_"I could do it if you want, sir," Kawalsky offered as he pulled out his sidearm. Hesitating, he dropped it into her open palm. "Maybe it'll be better that way."_

_"Close the door."_

_"Sir?"_

_"Do I have to fucking repeat myself? Close the damn door!"_

_Sam waited until she could hear Kawalsky stepping away to guard the hallway from anyone entering. She reached out and pulled Jonas from the cramped, cold corner he was hiding._

_"Sh..." she soothed. "It's okay, baby. I'm here. I never left. It'll be okay soon."_

_Jonas twisted, trying to get away, but he never could break free. Before, it was a freak surge of strength. Now he was too drained to do anything more than whimper._

_Her heart twisted at the sound, and she wrapped her arms around his thin body, holding him still. _

_Jonas would hate himself for becoming this. _

_She snaked a hand back down to her lap and curled her fingers around the handle of the gun. Chin on his forehead, she murmured his name once more, brushing her cheek against the tangled locks of unruly hair. Jonas had calmed some as if resigned to the fact he was going to hurt more soon. His lips moved constantly, mouthing a name over and over again._

_"Sammy...S-sammy...Sammy..."_

_"Jonas," she choked. "I'm right here. Tell me you know I'm here. Please. Show me something."_

_Nothing. He kept on chanting to himself._

_She held him for the longest time. She still hoped Jonas would suddenly stop chanting and brush against her cheek with his knuckles. _

_But he didn't. He kept chanting. Over and over again._

_The gun clicked as she cocked it. She gave him a kiss on his forehead before he could flinch away. She murmured his name against the clammy forehead, and placed the gun under his chin. _

_The shot was so loud. Yet the submarine fell into an unearthly silence that went on even after they came to take the body away._

Sam stopped touching her scar, the last thing Jonas had given her, and sat up. She almost wanted to believe O'Neill, but she couldn't. It was too good to be true. Too fantastic to be plausible.

_Let's hope some of their luck rubs off on us._

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Daniel hadn't realized he'd fallen asleep curled up on his side. He remembered telling Kawalsky about how Dan and John arrived on their world and how he and Jack had gotten trapped in theirs. He recalled the captain in return, talking a bit about how they lost Cheyenne and Sam Hansen's husband Jonas.

He couldn't believe it Sam was married to Jonas here. The Sam he knew was once engaged, but it fell through. It was truly unbelievable to him that the Sam Carter of this reality would marry such a man, a man who apparently was far different than the Jonas Hansen Daniel had encountered in his world.

It was all too strange, too frighteningly twisted to be real, yet here he was, trapped in a cold, tomblike room, talking to a man who by all accounts should be dead.

Daniel couldn't help feeling like he'd lucked out in not seeing. Listening to the captain's voice go hoarse as he talked about finding Cromwell in their dimension, how they'd lost cherished things in their reality that Daniel knew existed in his world for some, he felt...shamed.

How in God's name had they been spared all this?

Drifting, exhausted, Daniel dreamed of faces he knew, twisting, shaping like clay into other faces he'd never seen before. It was too strange. Too strange.

_"The Jack O'Neill I know would do it!" Daniel stated, hoping to get a rise from this man, eyes so familiar, yet so different._

_A scarred, bitter face stared back at him with little emotion. "Well, apparently, you and I have never met!"_

They were so different, yet Daniel could feel the concern in John O'Neill's actions despite the hostile attitude when they first met. Unlike the first time through the mirror. Daniel felt nothing of the sort in the other O'Neill. Not even the reluctant trust he knew Jack O'Neill sported. Hostility he could deal with. And had. But to have someone dismiss him as unimportant, as only there by accident, as an obstacle, it was a feeling Daniel had hated since he was a child.

Daniel shuddered as the twinges racing up and down his spine returned, and he felt a stranger's hand on his back in response. He couldn't bring himself to stir closer to the waking surface and let himself drift between sleep and consciousness. The pain dulled while he drifted so he couldn't bring himself to leave that state of peace for a moment. The voices he heard fluttered around him and over him like a breeze, taunting him to return with their words. Daniel still couldn't stop himself from trying to listen, dragging himself higher and higher to a state of awareness and pain.

"What has he told you?" a soft voice asked. Jolinar.

"Some stuff. Didn't sound like he remembered much still about the ship. Can't be surprised though. Hell, Dan barely remembered a few months of his ordeal or so he claims. Sometimes he couldn't even remember what he did the day before. Memories come and go as they damn well please."

"We have some neuar we can give him. It would ease the discomfort, and perhaps he will remember more."

Daniel frowned when he heard Kawalsky sigh. "Save it. Let's not use more than we have to. In case Dan gets back, he'll need every dose we can find. If we don't succeed in our mission, it'll be a cold day in hell before we'll be able to go back and take what we need. The Goa'ulds will be doubly careful if we fail."

Jolinar agreed. "It will be difficult to obtain any more intelligence for the time being. Perhaps with another general or system lord?"

The captain snorted in disbelief. "He knows your face, Jol. Including half the overseers. Fat chance of you waltzing back in again."

"Perhaps another host?"

Kawalsky paused. "You sure? I thought you guys had some sort of deal."

"She allowed me to hide in her body in exchange for vengeance for the death of her family. She will understand as she always has with everything we were forced to do."

"I'll have to take your word for it. Seeing as I've hardly spoken more than two words with her."

"She rarely surfaces. She told me she has no wish to see the war any more. I abide by her will."

Daniel frowned. He could hear the sadness in Jolinar's voice. There was an undertone, teasing his memory, taunting him with its voice. If only he could see. But the pain of opening his eyes was a harsh reminder that he couldn't right now. He was forced to keep them shut as tightly as possible, head tucked inside his bent arms he was pillowing his head with, cheek pressed against the wrist with the bracelet, unable to see for now.

He thought briefly of Dan and John. They were brothers. Even now, he was amazed. Of all the things to change, that was the one he had expected least. To somehow end up with a family, with people who gave a shit about him, and stick around with them for so long.

But them being family apparently had a price.

Ra.

Daniel felt a little envious of Dan O'Neill. He obviously had more courage if he was able to leave Lily in that park to encounter John O'Neill.

"Has the commander spoken with you yet?" Kawalsky was asking Jolinar, still oblivious to the fact Daniel was awake.

"No. But she rarely does." Jolinar didn't sound upset. "She does not like us."

"Yeah, well, something about the glowing eyes and no sense of humor really gets to her," he joked.

"We are Tok'ra. Not Goa'uld."

"Honestly? It's hard to tell at times. You guys tend to be very...aggressive. I mean...I heard about you with Ellison down in Peru..."

Jolinar sounded regretful. "We needed to destroy the base. It was the only Stargate left intact besides the one here. Now all they have to rely on are the Stargates in their battleships."

"You guys took no chances and blew a hole about ten miles wide down there," Kawalsky reminded her. A chill went down Daniel's spine.

"We tried to evacuate many through their Stargate before destroying the base."

Kawalsky grunted.

"The Tok'ra have learned through our many battles and losses of comrades that we must be as heavy-handed as the Goa'uld if we are to destroy Ra. We needed to become the demons to fight the demon." Jolinar paused. "Many do not like this, nor involving the Tau'ri, the original hosts from millennia ago, but we are losing the battle. We need the help as did you need ours."

"Well, if we get our battleship and you get yours as you bargained," Kawalsky mused, "after we defeat Ra and Jermak, you'll finally get a leg up on things."

"A...leg...up?"

"Er...weird human term."

"Indeed."

Daniel smiled faintly into the curve of his arm; the dry comment from Jolinar sounded like something Teal'c would say after encountering yet another puzzling human term.

At the thought of his friend, his smile faded. He wondered if they were still trying to work on getting them back. Uncomfortable with the idea of them so far away from the portal, no longer a mere touch away from home, Daniel squirmed.

"Hey...think he's coming to again." Kawalsky leaned closer. Daniel could feel the presence over him, looming like Jermak and Hathor did, and he froze.

"Easy. It's me, Kawalsky? Remember?"

Daniel nodded.

"You remember where you are?"

Unfortunately. Daniel nodded again. "Sub?"

"Yeah." A hand slipped under the back of his neck, Kawalsky helping him sit up. Daniel sat there, taking a moment to breathe, his chest heaving from the simple effort of rising.

"Dan-yel Jackson, do you remember me?"

Daniel tilted his heavy head towards the dual accented voice. "Jolinar?" he croaked.

"Yes." The Tok'ra paused. A hand dropped on his shoulder and squeezed, conveying the urgency. "We are sorry, but we must know. Do you remember anything more about the ship? Did they say anything about Ra?"

Frustrated, Daniel dropped his chin to his chest, shaking his head. The one thing he knew for certain came out of his mouth before he could stop himself, the words tasting acidic in his throat as they left. "He's coming. Ra."

"So he's still coming here," Kawalsky mused. "I guess they didn't want to tell him the main event was cancelled."

"It was their best opportunity to rid themselves of Ra." Jolinar sat down on the bunk, her hand on Daniel's arm. "How do you feel?"

Coughing into a fist, Daniel shrugged. "Tired. Where's Jack?"

"Still debriefing."

Daniel started to rise, hands flailing out to find some sort of brace to lift himself. The room tilted and and he felt himself swaying, threatening to fall off the bed.

A hand pushed down on his shoulder. To Daniel's dismay, the hand had pushed him down too easily. He could barely fight it.

"Give it a while. Okay? Rest up, take it easy."

"But—"

"Captain!" Boots thudded on metal flooring. "Radar's got three bogies on screen!"

"Shit." Daniel felt himself being braced, hands curling anxiously at the news. After settling him back on the bed, Kawalsky could be heard muttering, upset. "Has the commander been informed?"

"Yes, sir. We're shutting down the gate now. Engines going offline in one minute."

Kawalsky was getting up, the stool skidding across the floor as he rose. "Jol, you stay with Doctor Jackson. I'm going to head topside and see what's going on."

"Perhaps we should—" Jolinar started.

"No. Stay with him. Keep him quiet. We still don't know how far their range is and—"

Daniel couldn't stay silent any more. "What's going on?"

"They have sighted death gliders patrolling near our vicinity." Slender hands rolled him onto his back, something covering him that vaguely felt like a jacket, the zipper scratching him lightly on his throat. "The Goa'uld sends patrols to search for us every so often by gliders, trying to find the rebels' bases around the planet."

Daniel stiffened. He tried to sit up again, but his body seemed to have frozen in place, muscles stiff and unmoving. Daniel barely managed to wheeze out, "Can they sense the naquada in the Stargate from up there?"

Kawalsky was shouting stuff to the soldiers running by, but he heard the question anyway. "Not if we shut down the Stargate. They can't sense the naquada once we get Machello's shields up, but they don't work if we leave it on for someone to come through. We're shutting everything down, including nuclear." He clasped Daniel's shoulder before releasing. "It's going to get real cold very soon. Stay put with Jolinar." He turned back to the hallway. "Okay, kids! We have got to shut everything down now!"

"ETA two minutes!"

"Come on! Lights out, gang! Nobody home!" Kawalsky left the room, his boots thumping along with the others as they hurried.

Daniel didn't recall any sensors in the death gliders they had encountered. Then again, most of the time, they were too busy running away from their firing to check.

"They have never found us in all this time," reassured the Tok'ra, seeing his discomfort. "So long as the shields remain intact and the Stargate off, there is no danger."

The ever present humming surrounding the room was abruptly gone. Daniel felt the whole place shiver like the structure was anticipating the enemy's arrival. The sub stilled as the last of its energy depleted, and everyone stopped shouting. Daniel wondered if they were holding their breath. He was.

A low rumble boomed overhead like thunder, vibrating from his right, traveling to his left, fading as it went by. It took Daniel a few seconds to realize it wasn't lightning but the death gliders zooming past over the hidden cavern they were in.

Soft lips hovered over his ear. "Be still. Do not move too much. They have motion sensors from what I have heard from Jermak. They may still detect us."

Daniel squeezed his eyes shut. It hadn't gotten cold yet, but he could feel himself shivering, his hands shaking, the bracelet banging lightly against his knees. Goa'ulds circling around here like a pack of jackals, jaws snapping, seeking a dying animal for a feast.

Another rumble. They were circling back.

Was this standard? Was it routine to make another pass over their spot? Or were they exposed? Discovered?

"Sh...be still." A hand pressed close to his forehead, another over his arms around his knees, tucking him within himself even more.

It must be getting cold. Very cold. Daniel couldn't stop his teeth from chattering, his legs from trembling even with his arms wrapped tightly around them. Cold. It was cold. Why was it so cold now?

He bit his lower lip, trying to force himself to still. He felt odd, being pressed close to Jolinar, her soft curves against his arm, the coarse fabric of a similar jumpsuit brushing against his cheek as her arm wrapped around him to keep him warm. Her hand drifting to his chest, breath hovering over his ear, she whispered to him to be silent. For one brief moment, he'd panicked, thinking she was searching for a new host, any minute a larva would slither down and slam through the back of his neck.

"Sh..."

Another rumble.

God, how many times are they going to do this? Why won't they just leave?

Her hand over his, moved a little. A finger actually, slipping in under the cover he was wrapped in, snaking under a sleeve and stroking the third knuckle in small circles. Daniel kept his teeth on his lower lip, concentrating as hard as he could on the motion of her finger as a distraction from the aches and pain.

Circling, swaying, never ending, he allowed the movement to hypnotize him to a state of lethargy, his mind drifting. He felt his shivering lessen, his breathing slowing with the small gesture. Daniel wished he could see her. To see who Jolinar was. To see what magic she knew to make him feel better.

Breathing in and out in pace with her stroking, Daniel felt time slip into a long stretch, lulled by the gentle brushing of her fingertip against the back of his hand. He had a funny feeling she did this for Dan O'Neill as well, and the thought made him feel a little better.

"They are leaving," she whispered and pulled her hand away, the soft warmth that was her signature now gone. Daniel suddenly felt bereft. He tried to sit up, but her hand stopped him once more.

"Not yet. We must wait."

Wait. He could do that. Gingerly settling back down, Daniel realized whatever it was they had draped over him had fallen off. He lay on his back; the bunk board underneath him was like ice. His fingers were too numb now to feel the thick material enveloping him, trapping what pathetic remains of heat still existed from before. He relied on his hearing, head tilting towards the direction he kept hearing people coming and going. But there was nothing.

Despite the threat gone, everyone seemed to be standing still; the anxious rasping of their breaths he'd heard mimicking his own were absent. For a brief moment, he thought he was alone in the dark, the world so silent now it was actually suffocating.

The chill in the air seemed to double, pressing down on him with a heavy presence. The silence froze into a thick coat of ice over his face. Each breath he took was harder to exhale as if frost had formed in his lungs, filling him up with agonizing needles. His skin prickled even under his clothing. His skin felt tight, cracked. When did it get so cold?

Daniel was surprised to hear Jolinar curse in her language. The words while soft, held a tone of self-recrimination he never thought he would hear from a Tok'ra. He felt her take his hands, rubbing them briskly between hers, but he could barely feel them.

"You are cold," she stated calmly, but her hands were massaging his numb fingers roughly, quickly. Needles danced in his joints, stabbing him everywhere she touched, and Daniel gnashed his teeth.

"A l-little..." he admitted, astonished to realize he was shaking like crazy, knees tucking in as he curled up, trying to get warm again. The room was silent, empty of the hum of engines.

"They can not immediately turn on their engines yet nor the naquada reactors." Jolinar breathed softly onto his fingers.

A soft murmur could be heard outside, attracting his attention as it passed from one soldier to the next.

"All clear," someone whispered into their room before it got passed down to the next.

"It will be a while before the sub is warm again," Jolinar said, still sandwiching his hands between hers.

"Jolinar." It was Kawalsky. His voice was barely a rasp as he stood outside the room. "We're getting the engines back up in a few minutes," Kawalsky was still whispering. Daniel wondered if there was still danger. "How are you guys?"

Jolinar kept on what she was doing, her voice calm despite the urgency of the way she was massaging his hands. "You must hurry."

Footsteps approached, and Kawalsky sounded near. Something heavy draped over Daniel, but he could barely feel it. "Doctor Jackson? Daniel?"

"Cold."

"I know. It's probably got something to do with the devices. You're still trying to adjust to being in control again so you're a little sensitive to the cold right now."

"A l-little?" Daniel stammered in disbelief. "D-do you g-guys always...unders-state the ob-bvious?"

Kawalsky chuckled. Daniel felt the covers tighten around him. "Well, at least you haven't lost your sense of humor."

"T-thanks..." He feebly struggled to grab on to the ends of the thick material to wrap around him. It was a parka of some sort, and he sat there, avoiding the chilled wall near his side. He tensed when he felt arms around him, pulling him back against someone.

"Be still. It is for a moment longer." It was Jolinar. Her hand felt like ice as well as she pressed it against his forehead. "Perhaps you should get the colonel here, Kawalsky."

"Yeah...I think I should." Kawalsky was gone before Daniel could call him back. If he weren't so cold, he would have flushed from the unwarranted attention.

"They will be turning the engines back on soon, and it'll be warm again."

Daniel nodded numbly, squeezing his arms around himself tight. "Is...is this...d-does..." He shook with frustration. He couldn't get his mouth moving.

"The glider patrol?" guessed Jolinar. "Yes. More and more each day. It frustrated Jermak to no end that he could not find the rebels."

"S-stargate?"

"Without a Stargate of their own, they were forced to rely on the ones in orbit and the rings to land on Tau'ri. There is too much naquada on the surface for them to sense this Stargate." The Tok'ra laughed, sounding bitter. "The Goa'uld infested the planet with so much naquada that they must search for the rebels by other means."

"W-what other m-means?" Rubbing his own arms furiously, he felt Jolinar pull him in tighter, encased within the circle of her arms.

"I have heard there were many. But one I know of and witnessed was taking their victims as hosts and forcing the memories out of them."

Daniel clenched his fists. "No nishta?"

"Ra forbade Hathor to use it."

The room began to hum as the engines went back online.

"T-thank God," Daniel breathed. To his surprise, Jolinar didn't release him.

"You are still cold."

"I'll be okay." Shifting, he tried to shuffle away, but to his disgust, he could barely move.

"When you are warm, I will let go."

Sighing, Daniel gave up and dropped his head back, feeling her shift so her cheek pressed against his temple. On scorching contact, he hissed, the sore wounds still raw. Jolinar jerked back.

"I am sorry."

Daniel stopped.

"What is it?"

"You're different from Tok'ra we've encountered," he admitted.

"In your reality?"

"Yes."

Jolinar gave it some thought. "Perhaps we've adapted. We've become much like the Goa'ulds in order to fight Ra."

"No, no. That's not it. You sound more sincere. You actually thought to apologize." Daniel flushed. He could only imagine how that must have sounded. "I don't mean you aren't sincere. Just that—"

"We are not the same in your realm?"

Daniel laughed funny, the act irritating his throat. "No. Not really. The Tok'ra there choose when to come and go and decide what information we need to know."

"Ah...like the military."

This time, the laugh was real. "I can't believe it. You actually made a joke." Daniel's shoulders shook.

"We have allied with the humans for almost three years now since Dan O'Neill told them of our existence. We need the Tau'ri's help as much as they need ours."

Smiling, Daniel nodded. "Like I said. Much different than ours."

"Are we allies in your reality?"

Daniel's grin faded. "Us and the Tok'ra?"

"No. Me and you."

Daniel fidgeted in her hold. "I don't understand what you mean. You mean the Tok'ra and—"

Jolinar stroked his forehead, startling him with the intimate gesture. "No. I meant you and I. Dan O'Neill and I."

"Oh..."

Jolinar slipped away and set him against the wall. With the warmth of her body gone, Daniel shivered, pulling the jacket around him tighter. He could feel the warmth slowly seeping back into the room, caressing his face as gently as her fingers did before. He felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. His head spun, heady, almost drunk as he thought of the gentle, tender touch.

"I am upsetting you. I did not mean to do so." She sat further away from him, her stool scraping the floor as she moved. "What I meant was, were we friends? In the other reality as we are here?"

"Friends?" echoed Daniel.

"I visited Dan-yel O'Neill as often as I could. He provided me information from what he remembered when he was brought into Ra's court before he was moved to Seth's."

Daniel swallowed. "What happened to him there?"

"I can not say."

"Sorry, I wasn't trying to pry on his—"

"No. You do not understand. I can not say because he did not tell me. Only of the plans and locations he heard."

"How long was he there?"

Jolinar paused. "To my knowledge when I first encountered him on Ra's ship, it was already a month. Eight months later, he was returned to Captain O'Neill."

Daniel could feel the heat on his face fleeing. "Why didn't...I mean..."

"Why was he not rescued? I was unable to leave the ship at the time. After the treaty, I was given to Jermak as a reward for his services over Tau'ri. I was originally to be second wife until Hathor decided she did not want to share her throne with another female. So I remained as a consort. It was just as well. By his side, I learned many secrets."

Sitting up, Daniel blurted, "Wait a second. Treaty?"

"Ra and Apophis fought over borders. Ra won with the allies he gained after the defeat of Tau'ri brought him much regained power. They decided to end the battle and draw lines." The Tok'ra's voice hardened. "But we suspect in the Tok'ra council this truce will not last. Even now, Ra goes to his boundaries to ensure Apophis is not testing its strength."

"You can't trust a Goa'uld. Treaty or not." He murmured sadly. "So...that's how you met Dan and his brother?"

"No. I knew John O'Neill much longer than that, but I did not know the connection until Ra returned Dan-yel to him."

Tilting his head, Daniel frowned. "When was this?"

"When I was still a slave in the mines of my host's home planet. He was the overseer for the—"

"What?" Daniel exclaimed. He made a face and coughed, hunching over. Jolinar rubbed his back, trying to calm him.

"Be still. You are healing."

Sputtering, Daniel tried to speak. "You said...did you say..."

Jolinar sounded puzzled. "He was an overseer, first a slave until he was given the chance to guard the mines in exchange for his family's safety. It is _juzkaer_, very common for Ra to do—offering immunity to families for those who volunteer into a life of servitude to him. Many men and women did as John O'Neill. They did not know it was a farce."

Daniel clenched his jaw. "All this giving and taking. Being treated like some sort of...of..." He bunched his hands, frustrated.

"You were the defeated tribe of Tau'ri. Any power and mysticism your legends may have about driving Ra away were lost once he regained the planet."

"It wasn't his to begin with!"

Jolinar fell silent.

Daniel heaved a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry. I'm just shocked, I suppose. Captain O'Neill said he had to work for the Goa'ulds…but I thought maybe he was a slave, a miner or something. Nothing like—"

"He did what he thought he could to protect his family."

He nodded. "Of course." His head was pounding. It was getting hard to think, harder to try and remember what had happened the past few days. "I can imagine what he must have gone through."

The two fell silent, the hum around the room the only thing heard. Daniel sat there, his hands going up and down his arms, chewing over the news of John O'Neill.

Daniel couldn't begin to understand. The memories of a six-year-old were not comparable to now. Not even close. John O'Neill did the only thing he could to save his family. Dan couldn't fight back monsters who'd ripped him away from his loved ones. There was no way they could have stopped this.

_Then again as a kid, would you have been able to stop Lily?_

Even now her name gave him a sour taste in the mouth as much as another name did. He was beginning to wonder if the two names held the same meaning. Some day, he'd have to look it up in the dictionary and see if Hathor and Lily were really synonyms for each other.

Bad women from hell.

Daniel choked back the hysterical laugh threatening to break free. Those two were no longer there to bother him. One especially after so long. Why did he keep thinking about it when a world was being ripped of dignity and freedom right under him?

But he wondered. Despite telling himself it wouldn't do any good, he wondered what would have happened if he had left the car when she told him to get out rather than sit there holding the damn bag until she calmed down as usual. Would he be O'Neill instead of Jackson?

Or maybe, he would have found another family, one who would have stood by him while he waited for Social Services to track down his grandfather. One who would have been sympathetic when the letters of inquiry came back "unable to mail to sender". And all the years of loneliness and years of trying not to care about it would have never happened. Maybe he would have been teaching in some nice safe university, never approached by Catherine because he wasn't a cast out academic and never gone to the Stargate project.

And never met Sha're.

The lump in his throat returned. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Dan never gone to Abydos so he didn't miss her because he never met her, fell in love with her, stayed behind with her, then finally…lost her.

But Daniel himself couldn't imagine _not_ ever missing her. He couldn't imagine not waking up at night, looking over to the other side of his bed and wishing, wishing so hard, tears threatening to fall until he swallowed them back in order to get through the day alone. And that one point, that one difference between him and his twin made him wish he could change places with Dan O'Neill for a moment. Just to feel what it would be like not having to miss someone so badly he swore his heart bled. Dan had family, some who were still out there waiting to be rescued. A family.

Daniel only had memories of one.

"You never answered my question."

Tilting his suddenly heavy head towards her, Daniel couldn't figure out what she meant. "Oh. You mean about us as allies?"

"As friends."

Daniel pursed his lips, deep in thought. "It means that much to you?"

"I often wonder if I had not offered to give my host a way out of the war, let her hide inside without ever seeing it all again, where would I be?"

"I..." Daniel stopped. "We have met you before. But only briefly." He turned away.

"I died," she said flatly. His face must have revealed something.

"Yes," Daniel reluctantly admitted. "You did. You gave your life to save a very good friend of mine. And you told us about the existence of the Tok'ra."

"Ah." The Tok'ra sounded pleased. "Then I did not die in vain."

"You're acting pretty calm about this." Wishing he could see something, he could only imagine her face, probably a tall woman, strong, bold. He could imagine a smile on her lips.

"I would like to think all I have done, anything I will do, will not be futile."

"You're very dedicated," he told her solemnly.

"No. I am not." Jolinar rose, and her pacing footsteps could be heard. "I do this for vengeance. There is nothing noble in my actions. Should I die, it would not be for honorable means."

"Why do you say that?"

Jolinar went right up to his face, and Daniel flinched. He couldn't stop himself. He could feel the heat of her breath over his closed eyelids, reminding him of how Hathor hovered over him.

"Ra and Hathor..." Jolinar breathed. Daniel smelled a faint floral scent that reminded him of the vines that grew on the oasis in Abydos. "They killed my mate, my companion. They tortured him, forcing him out of the host and then forced him to enter another so that he might witness his first host's death before he was killed in the new body."

"Martouf?" Daniel whispered.

Jolinar stilled, her fingers curling around his shoulders loosened in shock. Her hair brushed against his face, and he shifted away. He jumped when he felt fingertips touching his cheek.

"You and Dan...sometimes remind me of him. You both weep over another's suffering," she whispered. She pulled away abruptly as if regretting her words. "Your friend has been waiting. I should go."

Before Daniel could call her back, she was gone, and another person entered. Daniel stilled, trying to figure out who it was, trying to wean out some identifying sound. It frustrated him to no end when he couldn't. He wanted to open his eyes even a crack to see.

"Wait, Daniel. What did I tell you about doing that?" More hands, this time ones he knew, clasped over his eyes to stop him.

"Jack," croaked Daniel, relaxing when he realized who it was.

"That was some weird drill before," the colonel weakly joked. "You okay?"

"It was...cold," Daniel hedged, and he felt the parka around him being wrapped tighter.

"Yeah, it did seem to get much colder here." Jack sighed.

Shaking his head, Daniel leaned back against the sub. "What did Sam...sorry, I mean, what did the commander say?"

Jack grunted. "Don't call us, we'll call you."

"You're kidding."

"No. I told her how we got here and took a few pictures before you got that oh so lovely souvenir, then about checking out of Chez Jerkbag."

"Jack, it's Jermak."

"Yeah, yeah." Giving Daniel a pat on the shoulder to show he knew, Jack sat on the edge of the bunk, studying his friend. Despite the chill, beads of perspiration had collected on Daniel's forehead. He frowned, remembering Jolinar was practically inches away from Daniel's face.

"So," he asked casually enough, "what did you and Jolinar talk about?" He spied the crates once more, drawn back to the duffel bag stuffed with old photos. He leaned forward, debating on reaching over.

Daniel shrugged, wincing as he shifted in his seat. "Nothing much actually. She wanted to know if we were friends in our reality."

"Eh?" Jack stopped in his tracks. "You and her host?"

Puzzled, Daniel shrugged. "Her host? No, with Jolinar."

"Oh yeah, of course." Jack shifted uncomfortably, hating he felt hampered, useless with his hands empty of any tasks to do. Eyeing the bag once more, Jack snagged the duffel, feeling a little guilty going through someone's stuff, but then again, he argued with himself, this could have been his stuff. He pulled out the same photo with Charlie in the center with Dan's floppy hat lopsided on his head.

Hearing the noise of Jack rummaging through the bag, Daniel sat up higher. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," the colonel muttered as he carefully slipped the photo back in the bag.

"_Jack_."

"Aw, there were some pictures. Got a little curious."

"Oh."

Jack arched an eyebrow. "That's it? Just oh? No, how I gotta respect other people's property and all that?"

"Like you'd listen!" Daniel retorted.

"Huh? What did you say?" Grinning, Jack lightly punched Daniel in the arm. "There was a bunch of pictures with our doubles on them. Just had to see."

"What kind of pictures?" asked Daniel in a quiet voice.

"I don't know. Pictures. There's one with Dan and his brother in Egypt. It's freaky, it almost looks like the one you have in your office. You know, the one with the camel?" Jack spied an old leather book buried under the photos, and he uttered a sound of surprise. "Well, I'll be."

"What is it?"

Pulling it out, Jack gently brushed the dust away from the heavy tome and fingered the text gilded in gold. M. Jackson was etched in fine lettering at the bottom of the spine.

Jack placed it in Daniel's hands, pressing his fingers so they would fold over the spine. The archeologist stiffened. "I remember seeing this in your office."

Daniel's mouth opened to an O, but nothing came out. He felt the oil slick surface of the leather, the lines and folds of a surface long bent from many times of reading. He bit his lip as he touched the corners with a finger.

"Any," his throat was so dry. "Any more in there?"

Jack arched an eyebrow. "You want me to go through their stuff?"

"Please."

Jack pulled the duffel bag closer to his feet and searched through it. He grunted as he found another. He took the other book away, which Daniel released with obvious reluctance and placed a smaller volume in Daniel's hands.

Daniel frowned, the book's cover was coarse with an almost powdery feel to it. He felt the surface with a palm and licked his lips as he opened it. He cried out softly, frustrated when touching the pages gave him no clue to what it was.

"Egyptian Mysticism," Jack read the title when Daniel set down the book and bowed his head. He observed the barely legible date on the spine. "1970."

At the title, Daniel's head shot up. "W-what did you say?"

"It said Egyptian Mysticism." Jack noted the trembling as Daniel brushed his fingers across the book again. "Ring any bells?"

Daniel nodded mutely. Running his hands all over the book as if reading it in Braille, Daniel said nothing at first.

"I don't have this one," he whispered.

Jack tilted his head.

"I remember him writing this when I was almost five. He..." Daniel swallowed. "I was sick and was sitting next to him on their bed. My parents on either side and he...he read his draft out loud for us to hear. Said it would put me to sleep." He laughed sadly.

Jack laughed as well. He could just see Daniel as a little boy with a mess of light hair, sitting with huge fascinated eyes listening to his father. Any child at that age would believe the moon was made of cheese if his father said so. A father's words were golden in such young hearts. Jack knew that was how it must have been for Daniel.

Because Charlie did the same thing when he was five.

A lump swelled in Jack's throat. He cleared it by coughing hesitantly. "What happened to it?"

"I don't know. She took it from me. Never saw it again." Daniel kept on stroking the book, a regretful expression on his face, unable to see the tome. "It's an obscure monograph he wrote. Had it specially bound as a keepsake. Can't find it anywhere. Tried."

Jack made a mental note of the title. Maybe Daniel couldn't find it, but Jack was pretty certain a bunch of super computers in DC could.

_Wait a minute._

"Who's_ she_?" Jack saw the long fingers still over the pages.

Daniel wordlessly gave the book back to him. Jack could see he didn't really want to part with it, though, as Daniel's fingers lingered over the surface of the cover before it reluctantly left his grasp. The colonel held the volume for a moment, sadly noting the pages were shredded, burnt in some sheaves, yellowed in the rest. He had a feeling his counterpart probably had to salvage it after the invasion. Jack was beginning to wish he hadn't opened that bag. It was like Pandora's box. All it let out was a bunch of stuff that soured his mouth. Ra or not, this reality had its moments. He saw Daniel's head bow, deep in thought, looking very bothered by something.

"What is it, Daniel?"

Shoulders slumping, Daniel mumbled, "I can't see."

A chill went down Jack's spine. "I know." He cleared his throat. "But they said it's getting better, right? You just got to give it some time."

"I know. That's not the problem. I...how does it look?"

Jack cocked his head to the side. "Look?"

"The base. Everything."

Turning his head, scanning the place, Jack shrugged. "It's a sub. Los Angeles class nuclear—"

"No. I mean...never mind." Daniel slouched forward, giving up.

Jack looked at the top of his head. His voice serious, Jack told him. "It's pretty bad. I've seen tool sheds pieced together better than this. I won't lie to you, Daniel. I'm surprised they survived this long."

Daniel didn't say anything at first, lower lip sticking out sadly. He gnawed on it worriedly.

"Who's here that we know?"

Touching his chin, Jack gave it some thought. "Well, the big one is their honcho, Hansen here, Carter's long lost grouchy twin sister. Ferretti introduced himself when he tackled me before for that drill. Remind me to thank him for that. Saw Warner here and Stein from Astronomy. Heard Siler was working on the engines. Simmons was in communications. Saw him as I was heading back. Nervous guy, a little jumpy. Shit, he practically peed in his pants when I said hi."

"Ever the diplomat."

Jack pretended to scowl at Daniel, but it faded as he realized Daniel couldn't even see it. He hurriedly went on, counting down. "Heard Jacob was coming here as well. Haven't seen General Hammond or whatever his rank may be here. And a few new faces I never met before." He darkened. "Saw a lot of kids running around. People too young to be serving in my opinion."

Daniel brushed a knuckle against his lower lip, asking quietly. "How many people?"

_Not a lot. Not enough to fight a war_, Jack thought. Out loud, he calculated. "Hell, I saw maybe...a hundred or so. But there were parts of the subs they didn't let me enter. They were sort of busy holding their breaths."

"They do this almost every day," Daniel said softly.

"It sucks, I know," Jack agreed. "I would be more than glad to help them out. But they have to let us."

"They don't trust us."

Jack darted a look at the archeologist. "You don't look surprised."

"Jack, when I accidentally went through to P3R-233, I wasn't exactly welcomed with open arms."

"Now that you mention it, what exactly _did_ happen there?"

"I told you—"

Jack waved a hand impatiently. "Yeah, yeah. Came, saw, ran. I read the report. But I want to know what happened there."

Daniel lifted his head, eyes shut to shy away from the light. "Look around you," he said softly. "This was what happened. They had one last chance to dial the Stargate, Jack. One last chance and they gave it to me so I could escape and tell you all."

"They must have thought there was no other choice left for them anyway." Solemn, Jack silently wondered how they'd lucked out with Daniel returning back with the warning of an invasion by Apophis. He smacked his lips. Why did his throat feel like he'd gulped down a bucket of sand?

"How did we escape, Jack?" whispered Daniel, voicing what Jack wouldn't. He rubbed his hands together as if he were cold. "How? How were we able to avoid all this? Surely one person's actions couldn't affect the entire world, could it?"

Jack watched the hands twist before him. "What's this one person you're talking about?"

"I'm just saying."

"Uh huh." The colonel didn't believe him.

Shaking his head, Daniel murmured, "Doesn't it make you wonder?"

"No. It doesn't." Folding his arms, Jack frowned. "I can't act if I think too much, Daniel. It'll get in the way of coming out of this alive. You want to think, you do that after the mission."

"I know, but—" Daniel started to say when Jack stopped him with a hand on his forearm.

"But nothing. We get through this, get home and help them kick some snakehead ass. Then we have to talk."

Daniel laughed bitterly. "Seems like all we're doing is talking right now."

"No, I mean talk about what's dragging you down and getting you all distracted."

Daniel clamped shut. He heard Jack sigh.

"I'm not going to drop this."

"It has nothing to do with this mission, Jack."

"No, but I bet it's got everything to do with you, and that can affect a mission." Seeing Daniel was still stubbornly keeping quiet about it, he gave up. Jack tugged at Daniel. "Look, we have to talk with Hansen and her leaders in a few hours. Get some rest."

Daniel nodded. "You think they'll help us?"

"They'd better if they want _us_ to help them." Jack gently pushed Daniel down, catching the wince his friend made as he was forced to move. Jack's eyes darkened, but he said nothing of it.

"But not now. Think about that later. Get some sleep. I'm going to grab some hours myself." He studied Daniel's shut eyes and knew he wasn't asleep. He patted him on a stiff shoulder. "Just relax, okay?" he murmured, heartened to feel the tautness ease up a little bit. Pausing, Jack eyed the board on the top bunk and shrugged.

The prospect of the wooden board didn't seem appealing. He dragged a crate out to prop his feet up on, snagged a parka from the floor and put it on. Zipping it up, Jack was glad to feel the bite of the chill in the room was a little more bearable. He settled onto the stool, back against a stack of boxes piled up next to the bunk, his legs extended in front of him.

"Jack?"

Surprised Daniel wasn't asleep yet, he grunted, "What?"

Daniel looked hesitant. "You mentioned pictures before...how did they look?"

Jack glanced over to the duffel, the last photo he'd held still visible from the opened bag. His eyes dulled, tired lines forming around them as he zoomed in on one face.

"They looked happy, Daniel. Pretty happy." He turned around, his back to the bag and helped Daniel zip up the parka he slipped on as well. Yanking the blanket crumpled at the side, Jack gave it a quick flip and draped it over his friend.

"Such a price, Jack," Daniel whispered.

Jack was confused. "Huh?"

Daniel didn't say anything more. He turned on his side and pretended to sleep. He flexed his hands, trying to remember how the little book felt in his palms, the gritty sandpaper feel of the cover. Lily snatched it away to sell to pay for her miserable husband's filthy habits. It was odd to know the same items he'd lost, Dan had found. Books. A family. And memories etched in photos. He wished he could see the pictures himself, see if he looked that much different in them, but he heard Jack when he told him and knew.

Jack had wondered. For himself. The same "if only" lingered in his words, the same ones that were keeping Daniel up were probably keeping Jack up as well.

"I said sleep. That's not sleeping, Daniel."

Stiffening, Daniel heard his friend exhale a low sound of frustration. Only Jack could tell when he was pretending to sleep. He didn't know how Jack did it. Sometimes even on Abydos when the alien planet's natural sounds of wind and storms kept him up at night, he would lie still anyway, and Sha're never knew as she blissfully slept beside him.

His throat closed up at the thought of her. While the year they had together wasn't always perfect, it was the closest thing to a sense of permanence he'd ever known.

His chest pricked, and Daniel winced in spite of himself. Seemed like the little cramps were coming back again although not as pronounced.

"Hey." Jack saw the shaking, heard the sharp intake of breath and reached over. He touched him, concerned. "What is it?"

Daniel shook his head, grimacing. "Cramps."

"Should I get their doctor?"

"No...they'll pass..." Daniel bit back a gasp as he felt the first tightening around his legs, the agonizing stretching of muscles. He resisted the urge to curl up, his hands bunching into fists to stave off the pain.

_It'll pass. It'll pass. Just breathe in and out. In and out._

"Daniel, no one is asking you to be a martyr," Jack said sharply as he went over to the bed and sat down on the edge. He could see the shivers going up and down the young man's back. "I could get someone to give you something."

Shaking his head, Daniel wrapped arms around himself, legs twitching as muscles began to spasm. "I'm fine," he grated.

Jack bit back a retort. He didn't know why Daniel was being so stubborn. Hell, from what they were telling him, this fun ride was going to last a day or so, and it looked like it was beginning right now.

Leaning forward, Jack snaked an arm around Daniel's shoulders.

"W-what are you doing?" he stuttered as Jack lifted him back up.

"Going to try something and see if it helps."

"I told you, I'll be—"

"Just let me try, okay? If it doesn't work, you can sue me for malpractice later on," Jack said exasperated.

Daniel fell silent. Jack took that as his consent, and he firmly maneuvered his friend to sit in front of him, blanket still draped carefully on Daniel's lap. Hesitating, eyeing the reddish circular wounds on the temples, the small puncture holes already beginning to pucker, Jack carefully probed the skin around them.

Jumping, Daniel flinched back. A firm grip on his shoulder told him to remain where he was so he sat there, cringing as he felt fingers beginning small circles around the temples, avoiding the wounds where the devices had been attached.

Round and round Jack's fingers went, maneuvering away from the wounds, pressing down gently then releasing on his temples. Daniel sat there; the minute trembling in his limbs didn't feel as acute now. He concentrated on the motions. Round and round, never ending. He felt like he was going to float away.

"Used to get these headaches," the colonel murmured, rubbing the temples slowly, keeping an eye on the back of Daniel's neck for any signs of discomfort, "during my Special Ops days. Too many hours of staying on alert probably. Found this helps." He paused. "Does it?"

Daniel realized his legs were no longer taut with tension and uttered a sound of surprise. "Actually, it does."

"Great, I'll send you my bill."

Shaking his head, Daniel sat there, letting the repetitive motion of the fingers relax him further. The colonel said nothing more as he continued to do so even when the cramps seemed to vanish, and his head dipped forward, relaxing. Daniel could feel himself swaying.

"Daniel?"

"Mm?"

"What's going on with you, huh? What's been bothering you?"

Daniel frowned. "That's not fair asking me when I can't think of a response."

"Eh?"

Daniel repeated it again and heard a chuckle.

"You're slurring."

Daniel lifted his head. It felt so heavy. "What?"

The massage stopped, and the hands moved down towards his shoulders, stopping briefly to squeeze gently at the nape of his neck. Daniel felt himself being pushed back down to the bed again, blanket pulled up to his chin.

"Never mind. We'll talk about it later."

Daniel wanted to say he didn't want to talk, but whatever he mumbled came out incoherent, and inwardly he cringed at how feeble it sounded. Jack didn't take offense though nor did he laugh again.

Daniel finally let the words persuade him. His body felt like water, floating away to oblivion. As the darkness his shut eyes made became a deeper darkness of sleep, his final thought was whether Dan O'Neill had this—a guarding presence during sleep. As he felt Jack feeling his forehead for fever, Daniel drifted away, truly believing he could end up okay after all.


	25. Chapter 24

**CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR**

Sam jerked, waking up with a start. Rubbing her eyes, she realized she had fallen asleep on top of her desk, the video monitor showing nothing but snow and static as the tape she was viewing ran out.

"Damn it," she muttered, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with a fist. She got up shakily, noting it'd been a day since their disappearance. Four days, nineteen hours before the return of Ra. Less than five days before they could contact the Asgards and ask for their help.

It was so frustrating. The wall, simplest in form, yet complicated in function, stood in her way of rescuing her friends. And she saw General Hammond's brooding face with each passing hour. She could tell when he passed by the hallway, by her door, not coming in, but his eyes always glancing inside with a question.

Can we save them?

Sam's shoulders slumped. God only knew where the colonel and Daniel were right now. She saw the Jaffa emerging from all sides as they stood there, and she knew, by John O'Neill's whispered denial and the dark grimace on the colonel's face, that history was repeating itself. On Daniel.

She clenched her fists.

Glancing down at her bunched hands, she dully noted the red outline of the bracelet was already fading. She turned her attention to the lone gold circlet at the corner of the table, a woeful reminder of why she didn't need it. She wasn't there with the rest of her team, in the other reality. She was safe, back in hers. Sam scowled at the bracelet, taking it into her hand.

The bracelet was surprisingly easy to remove. After putting it on to head off to the planet, before Jack and Daniel were lost on the other side, the jewelry had pinched uncomfortably for the first few seconds. When she returned, she had yanked off the circlet out of frustration, not realizing until she calmed that the bracelet was held tightly in her other hand.

Putting it on again, she had Teal'c try to pull it off without any success. Apparently, only the wearer could take it off. It was a small consolation to reassure one of her concerns about the colonel's and Daniel's bracelets being taken off by the enemy. Wouldn't happen unless they voluntarily took them off themselves.

Checking her watch, she noted it was time to head back to try again and toyed with the idea of checking on Dan O'Neill first. But she was afraid of seeing the ill man and seeing her friend's face instead like a morbid premonition. She would rather just throw herself into her work and see if good ole Samantha Carter could pull out another brilliant one to save the day.

Standing, she flicked the remote towards the monitor, shutting down the screen. The VCR popped out the tape, and she grabbed it. Sam stared at the bracelet on the table, grabbing it and hastily putting it on, barely feeling it shrink around her wrist as she headed straight for the door.

A dark shadow blocked her exit, and she stilled.

"Teal'c?" Sam wondered why Teal'c was here. Last she heard, he was keeping Dan company. For some reason, John had been everywhere helping out. Everywhere but near his younger brother. "What are you doing here? Is something wrong with Dan?"

The Jaffa looked strangely concerned as if unsure of something. He shook his head and extended his hand. Sam grinned at the item in his grasp.

Coffee.

"Thanks," she murmured, gulping down the contents of the steaming cup. She could feel the weariness peeling away from her like a cloak. She smiled towards her friend. "How did you know?"

"Doctor Frasier informed me you did not leave this lab," Teal'c said in a mild voice. If she didn't know better, Sam could have sworn she heard disapproval in the Jaffa's voice. "You would be tired before your departure." He bowed his head slightly in regret. "I am not of much aid in such matters of science, and Dan O'Neill requested I remain to assist him. But I thought perhaps I might offer you nutrition before you depart."

"It's exactly what I need. Thank you." She finished the rest of the drink and sighed.

"You are quite welcome."

"And, Teal'c?"

The Jaffa arched an eyebrow questioningly.

Sam handed him back the empty cup with a smile. "You are of great help. More than you ever know." She gave him a pat on the arm, echoing something O'Neill would do. "Wish me luck. Hope I figure this out."

"You will," Teal'c intoned firmly.

Sam blinked at him. She smiled a bit more broadly. "There's that great help again." She squared her shoulders, one more pat to his arm in silent thanks and went out to get ready for heading back to the planet to try again.

"You are quite welcome," Teal'c repeated, watching her leave. He glanced down at the empty cup in his hands. He felt oddly pleased the gesture was well received. He did not know why, but he felt he should be doing something, and if Major Carter said this helped, the Jaffa was glad he'd taken the time a while back to learn how to make coffee, thanks to Daniel Jackson.

His eyes narrowed with concern. There were many more lessons he wished to learn from his young human friend and from Colonel O'Neill. He prayed the gods would watch over them and return them quickly. He did not like the feeling of failing them somehow, unable to help them due to some wall which stood stubbornly in his way.

Standing there with the mug, he decided he needed to do more, and the only thing that came to mind was Dan O'Neill who was sleeping in the guest room, alone with John O'Neill nowhere in sight.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Janet arrived back to base way ahead of schedule. Cassandra had classes still, and it was a simple matter of dropping her off at school a bit earlier and driving to work a little faster.

Home was often a comfort for her, the duties as a mother proving to be a balm to her soul after each day. She marveled as Cassandra, with all her resilience and natural curiosity, overcame her grief at the loss of her parents to become this wonderful child sharing her home.

This very same wonderful child who asked her last night if Jack and Daniel were still coming over next week for the barbecue.

Janet lay awake the whole night, the question echoing in her mind.

Thus she was up an hour ahead of the alarm clock, bleary eyed and more exhausted than when she went to bed. But Cassandra didn't understand. Nor did she realize Janet was quiet during the drive. She was going on and on about the growing dog Jack had given her and how Jack was going to show her how to teach it a few tricks. Talking rapidly away with the boundless energy of youth, she didn't realize Janet's hands were shaking on the steering wheel.

For such a state of mind, Janet would have pulled another doctor off the roster. The doctor would have been more of a hazard than help to patients acting this way. The doctor would do more harm than good.

More harm than good.

Standing at the front guard's desk, Janet found her hand shaking again over the sensors. The Hippocratic oath rang in her head in mocking tones. An oath she took seriously, one she repeated to the Medical Board with pride and resolve. One her twin broke with every victim she took and gave the monstrous devices to.

More harm than good.

Setting her jaw, she walked to the elevator, gave the card reader a vicious swipe of her ID to let her in and barely managed to stay still enough before the doors closed in front of her. As it descended, she leaned against the elevator wall and took a deep breath.

In a few minutes, she'd be back in the infirmary, watching the clock tick away on Dan O'Neill's life. And all she could do was pull Daniel Jackson's books off the shelves and read them out loud to Dan as he struggled to make use of the time he had left.

John should know.

She always believed in the privacy of the patient, but in this case, she couldn't find herself completely understanding the reason to conceal this from his brother and enforce a wall of solitude in his darkest hour. And she could see John, avoiding Dan but still lingering a moment to make sure he was taken care of before leaving. Dan's plan to push him away was backfiring. She knew, no matter what, that protective streak in the older man would never be truly extinguished.

Apparently, it ran in all realities.

_"So...he's okay?" Colonel O'Neill asked dubiously, pacing the outside area of the infirmary, trying to appear like he wasn't. He would stop, hands in pockets, then out again, before he paced once more in a left to right motion. He looked through the double doors' windows, to where Sam and Teal'c were, staying with Daniel._

_Nodding, she scanned the readings off her clipboard once more. "The ribbon device she used on him didn't seem to cause any permanent damage, although we will have to run some tests to make sure what the psychological effects are considering his wife was the one who did this to him." She looked through the doors as well, remembering the reddish burn on Daniel's forehead, the dazed look in his eyes as he was guided by Sam's hand on his elbow when they returned home. "I've made an appointment for him to meet Doctor Mac—"_

_"Doc."_

_Janet turned to look at the colonel. He stood there, arms crossed, face grim._

_"Let's hold off on the 'how do you feel' sessions, all right?" The colonel frowned slightly at her suggestion. Something crossed his face quickly. "Last thing he needs right now is too many people clamoring over him. Give him some time to breathe first, okay?"_

_Puzzled, Janet gestured towards the infirmary. "Colonel, you are aware of the fact that he just lost his wife? After three years? Surely—"_

_"I know he lost his wife, Doc. And I also know how he lost her." The colonel looked cross. He frowned at her. "Fact of the matter is, do you? Truly?"_

_Janet bit her lip, quiet. No. She couldn't possibly imagine how he must feel. She knew grief was too simple a word to describe it._

_O'Neill's scowl softened. He looked back at the doors, and her eyes followed. She saw Daniel curling up on his side, back towards Sam and Teal'c, even as they sat close by. She felt a bitter taste in her mouth. _

_No. She couldn't possibly imagine._

_"Leave him alone for now, Doc. Tell the shrinks, especially Mackenzie, to back off. I'll...We'll deal with this ourselves," O'Neill murmured. He stood up straighter as if preparing and walked through the double doors back to Daniel again, not even offering to hold them to let her in. _

The elevator doors opened, and she paused, seeing the infirmary down the hall. Squaring her shoulders in the way Colonel O'Neill had, she headed for the ward. At the sight of someone coming out of it, she slowed her steps. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw who it was.

John O'Neill.

The captain was shoving his arm through a sleeve of his fatigue jacket, rigid back turned to her as he walked down the hallway in the direction of the embarkation room. She pursed her lips, wondering what warranted a visit to the infirmary. A chill went down her back, and her footsteps quickened as she hastened to the infirmary.

Pushing the double doors open with a quick shove of her hands, she scanned the place quickly.

No Dan O'Neill.

She frowned.

"Doctor Frasier?" One of the nurses walking by stopped at her puzzled expression.

"What was Captain O'Neill doing here?" Janet nodded towards the doors.

The nurse shrugged. "I came in this morning for shift. Saw him dozing off on one of the empty beds off curtain three. When I went to ask, he just got up and left." She gestured towards a rumpled looking bed in the corner.

Staring sadly at the now vacated bed, Janet's shoulders slumped. More and more, her promise to keep silent was pressing down in her heart and throat. The breakfast she had grabbed hastily sat uncomfortably in her stomach.

"Doctor Frasier?" The young nurse stood there, puzzled by the tired shake of Janet's head.

Janet checked the wall clock, noting it was late morning. "Has Doctor O'Neill come in for more blood samples?"

"No. I haven't seen him around."

Studying the empty infirmary, Janet felt the urge to leave the all too clean and neat place. "Hand me that bag, will you, please? I'll go see him myself."

With another puzzled look, the nurse complied without any comment and watched as the doctor grabbed the satchel and left the infirmary only just having entered it minutes before.

SG1SG1SG1

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Jack felt the vibrations before seeing the stuff around the room shake. Sitting up straighter in his seat, he saw the small box by the corner shuddering, the duffel bag with all its photos shaking, traveling towards him. Any other person might have thought it was an earthquake. But Jack knew better. He'd seen this before.

Someone was using the Stargate.

Outside the room, he could hear people running by, alerted by the activity, and occasionally he heard a rifle or gun being readied with a sharp sounding click as they ran.

Jack got up, gave a cursory glance over to Daniel before pulling open the metal door. He caught Jolinar heading for their room, hugging the walls closely to let the other men run by.

"What's going on?" Jack scanned the room and heard another hum underlying the sub's background noise. The shaking lessened, only evident with the fainter rattling of the items inside John O'Neill's duffel bag by the corner.

"Machello's naquada shields have activated." She gestured towards the room. "Once the Stargate is activated, the shields turn on to absorb the naquada signature so we are not detected by the enemy."

"Activated?"

"We have someone arriving through the Stargate," Jolinar explained. She was looking inside the room. Jack noticed her gaze went immediately towards Daniel as if checking to make sure he was okay. The archeologist was still sleeping, oblivious to the noise around him.

"Do you guys know who it is yet?" Jack was torn between finding out himself and staying with his friend.

Jolinar understood, waving a passing soldier to stop. Jack nodded, recognizing the nervous soldier, brown hair a mess of curls as he tried to tuck them inside his helmet, readying himself for action. Simmons' familiar young face, one Jack only caught briefly in the communications panel by the control room, froze at the sight of Jack. O'Neill stepped aside for the soldier to enter.

"The signal has not come through yet."

"Is the iris still shut then?" Jack greeted the lieutenant with a tight smile which Simmons returned with a puzzled look of his own. It occurred to Jack that the young soldier hadn't discovered yet he wasn't John O'Neill. Too tired to try and explain to one more person and deciding he'd leave that fun job for Commander Hansen, Jack turned back to Jolinar, dismayed when he saw the perplexed look on the Tok'ra's face.

"Iris?" Jolinar echoed.

"Damn." Apparently they didn't have one. Jack glanced back to Daniel then to Simmons. The young soldier was looking around the hallway, hardly standing still. Probably wants to join the others, Jack surmised.

"Can you stay with him?" Jack asked, drawing his attention. "In case he wakes up. You could let him know where I am?"

Simmons barely had a chance to nod when Jack clapped him soundly on the shoulder as thanks and took off after Jolinar, heading for the top deck to see who was knocking at their door.

As they left, Simmons slowly turned towards Daniel with an odd expression on his face.

SG1SG1SG1

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Hansen stood there stoically, watching as each chevron lit up one by one. As the soldiers waited the closest they possibly could to the Stargate, she readied her own rifle, watching for the wormhole to gush out in a garbled roar. Everyone visibly tensed, anticipating the signal.

"Siler," she called. Her words billowed out in icy condensation. The sergeant was rolling the device down below, long cables pulling as he brought it near the Stargate. "Anything?"

The sergeant shook his head. He was saying something about his transmitter, puffy clouds punctuating his words, but she couldn't hear him. The hum of the subs, the Stargate itself was muffling them. But apparently, judging by the way the soldier shrugged and returned back to his machine, it wasn't important enough to be heard, so she concentrated on training her weapon at the Stargate at head level. She'd seen a Goa'uld get plowed down by a half dozen bullets, but the damn snake inside the body kept healing itself. She had found, over the years, one simple bullet clear through the head ensured the enemy that went down, stayed down. Hansen gazed at her men below, nodding to herself with approval when she saw them do the same.

"Who is it?" Jack O'Neill panted as he ran up the steps to the bridge. Hansen shot him an irritated look. The colonel had the gall to look like he didn't realize there were a dozen guns pointed at the Stargate. He was standing on the bridge, looking like he expected the Stargate to look differently, frowning at it, like it didn't meet his approval. Hansen's scowl came back. It was crude, she knew, but it worked guarding the gate like this. But she didn't have the time or the patience to point that out to him and only concentrated on getting ready to shoot the moment she saw any enemy armor coming through.

"We are still waiting for a signal," Jolinar whispered.

The colonel looked over to her for confirmation, and Sammy curtly nodded. She was in no mood for conversation. Let the Tok'ra give him progress reports and updates for all she cared.

"I got a signal, commander!" Siler reported loudly as his equipment beeped. His voice echoed throughout the cavern. "Tok'ra IDC."

No one lowered their guns.

Jack looked over to Jolinar, seeing Sha're's face shaped with heavy concentration. The Tok'ra glanced back at him and leaned closer to whisper, "General Carter and the leaders of this base."

His eyes moved back to Hansen, questioning.

"She is commander of the forces, but the planet Tau'ri had their leaders escape to an unknown location. Until then, there are six major leaders for this planet's rebellion. They have been underground off planet with Jacob Carter for nearly four months."

"Why come back now, then?" Jack whispered back as he watched the soldiers cautiously approach the Stargate, the first line of men taking steps towards it while the next line remained where they were to back them up. His mouth twitched at the sight. No barricades, no heavy gunnery, not even a damn plate of bulletproof glass to give them a few seconds of protection. Just a few fresh faced soldiers in helmets looking too large for their heads, standing out like sore thumbs in the white snow in front of the firing zone. Jack tensed, wondering how accurate their signals were anyway. But no one had emerged out of the Stargate yet. He clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth. "Why are they popping out of safety now after four months?"

"Ra," Jolinar said simply. "Jermak had practically announced the system lord was coming to handle the execution himself. It would have been the perfect opportunity to get him, but when John O'Neill disobeyed orders to rescue Dan-yel—"

Jack turned his head sharply. "You weren't going to get him?"

"We would have...after Ra came," Hansen grated, hearing the question. She darted a stern look over to him. "Do you mind?" She faced the Stargate again, tensing as a figure slowly emerged from the wormhole.

Everyone seemed to still, guns aimed at the event horizon as the thick woven garb of a Tok'ra became visible.

Narrowing his eyes, leaning over the bridge's rail, Jack could make out two other forms in heavy parkas and helmets coming out behind the Tok'ra, whose features were hidden inside the hooded cloak he or she wore over the Tok'ra uniform.

Jolinar leaned forward. "Tel shak Tok'ra?" she called out between cupped hands.

"Chu to pak no," the new visitor replied in return.

"In English," Hansen hissed, nudging her rifle toward the three down on the ice cavern below. "English. We can't read minds!"

Jack gave her a look, but the commander ignored it. Jolinar called out in a louder voice. "Are you Tok'ra or foe?"

"If you need to ask, we're obviously not foe!" one of the visitors behind the Tok'ra replied in a wry voice. "You invited us!" Pulling out a similar globe which was a twin to the one Hansen had before, the visitor waved it. "Now, are you going to let us in or not?" The speaker pulled off the helmet he was wearing, revealing graying cropped hair and small beady eyes that crinkled in greeting. "Hurry it up, commander! I'm freezing here!"

Hansen shook her head, not angry, only amused. She grinned wryly and lowered her rifle a little. The other soldiers did the same. "Welcome back to Beta, sirs," she greeted finally.

"Thank you, Hansen," the other visitor replied, taking off his helmet, revealing the features of General George Hammond. He scanned the base with a satisfied smile. "It's been a while."

"Still could use a bit of a paint job though, Commander," the other commented to Hammond with a smirk. "You know...some curtains, a table here and there..." He waggled his eyebrows at Hammond, then smiled up towards Hansen and the others. "What do you say?"

Jack gawked at the familiar face, the last person he would expect to see smiling so openly. No way, it couldn't be...

Maybourne.

He couldn't stop staring as both Maybourne and Hammond came up to the sub, standing in front of Hansen, waiting.

"Captain O'Neill?" Hammond spoke as he observed Jack standing next to her. His eyebrow shot up, and he looked back to Hansen with alarm.

Sammy just nodded.

"Okay, Commander. I can see now why the urgency." Hammond folded his arms, standing on the icy ground and staring at Jack, working his jaw as he studied the colonel. "We'd better go ahead with the procedure. Get us to X-rays so we can get right on it." He nodded to the sergeant as he went by. "Siler. Good to see you back. Heard you and Ferretti had a hairy moment or two in Dallas."

"Walk in the park, sir," the soldier replied, giving Hammond a quick scan as if to confirm for himself he was not Goa'uld.

"What gives?" Jack muttered after Hansen climbed down the conning tower to greet the leaders. Their voices dropped immediately to keep whatever they were saying private as they walked towards the last submarine for examination.

"They do this with everyone." The Tok'ra woman nodded towards the new Tok'ra visitor still standing in the cavern, staring at Hansen's back as she left with the leaders. "I was told an infiltrator, a Goa'uld inside one of their men, came once before the alliance between the Tok'ra and the rebels. The spy tried to sabotage the Stargate and alert Seth to the base's location. Had John O'Neill not returned from the mines and recognized him, they would have been long dead." She twisted around, gazing at Hammond's and Maybourne's backs. "They may be some of the world's leaders for now, but if they are Goa'uld..." Her eyes glowed. "We would have to destroy them regardless. These bases must be protected. We must be careful now to X-ray them and check the backs of their necks for penetration."

The Tok'ra below finally spoke. "Jolinar." The dual voice rang out in the cavern and lingering soldiers who were resetting the inner track of the Stargate by hand spun around, glaring at the speaker. The Tok'ra took no notice as he pulled down his hood. A narrow face, balding with a sweep of white hair along the sides, Jacob Carter stared back at Jack with mild amazement.

"Damn," murmured Jack. "Let me guess...Selmac?"

Startled, Jolinar could only nod.

"He's also Selmac in my reality." Jack waved weakly down to the former general who contemplated the gesture before returning it. Jacob immediately climbed the tower to the bridge. As he reached them, he paused on the top rung, scanning Jack once more, drifting to the gold ring around Jack's wrist before his eyes snapped back to his face.

Jacob Carter's voice came through this time. "Damn. If you hadn't told me, Jol..." He shook his head, swinging over to the bridge. "Uncanny, I tell you." He straightened up and stuck out his hand. "Jacob Carter."

"I know," Jack said simply, grabbing the offered hand and shook it. "Colonel Jack O'Neill."

Jacob turned to Jolinar, his voice changing even as he still shook Jack's hand. "What news have you of Ra?"

Jack winced. It was easy to forget that General Carter was also the Tok'ra Selmac. He felt the older man drop his grip, and he was more than glad to do the same, forcing himself not to instinctively wipe the hand clean on his slacks.

Shaking her head, Jolinar had no good news. "Dan-yel Jackson does not recall much of his experience on Jermak's ship. We regret our intelligence falls short of detail, Selmac."

Closing his eyes, Selmac appeared disappointed but resigned. Opening them again, the eyes glowed briefly before returning Jacob to the surface.

"Well, that sucks," Jacob commented with a frown. He considered Jack for a moment. "Jackson, huh? So you guys aren't..."

Jack shook his head. "Daniel's part of my team."

"Team?"

"In their reality, Ra is dead. Their threat is the secondary lord Apophis."

"Dead, huh?" Giving Jack a thumbs up, Jacob maneuvered around the tight quarters of the bridge to go down the hatch. "Lucky you. Hoping to do the same here?"

Jack snorted. "If you let us." He followed the Tok'ra, alternating feet and hands over the cold rungs. He raised his head and saw Jolinar doing the same. Jack quickened his steps, regretting it for a moment when his back bunched uncomfortably with the movement, forcing him to slow his pace before he ripped anything open again. It was hard to do. He didn't like being sandwiched in by two Tok'ra. Sure, they weren't Goa'ulds, but a snake was still a snake, Jack thought. Then guiltily, he looked up and saw Sha're's face peering down the passageway, the concern evident in her dark eyes, and he hastily glanced down to see where he was going.

"Where's your friend now?" asked Jacob as he landed on the top deck of the control room and waited for them to join him. Rubbing his hands together, Jacob didn't look happy about the cold. He stamped his foot once and grimaced. "Damn ice box. They're going to be a while. Might as well check on your friend. Jol tells me he got marked?"

Jack's eyes darkened as he darted a glance over to Jolinar, remembering how cool and collected she was when she pulled the _re'klya_ out of Daniel. The reddened circles around the small puncture marks on his friend was a mild reminder of the goosebump inducing screams Jack had heard. Daniel was marked all right. But Jack suspected so was he. He doubted the screams, the image of Daniel writhing under their hands would ever go away, tattooed permanently in his mind. "You could say that."

"Luckily he got them out in time." Jacob fished out a small velvet black pouch and transferred it into Jolinar's waiting cupped hands. "I have more neuar. Should help him a little. Figured your supply might be a little low by now."

Eyeing the blue vials peeking out of a padded pouch, Jack nodded. "They helped him before."

"Well, then. How about this?" Taking out one bottle, Jacob waved it at Jack like a baton. "You give me a little info, and he gets one."

"Jacob—" Jolinar began to protest.

"Fine."

Jacob stopped waving the vial and stared at Jack.

Shrugging, Jack plucked the container out of his hands before the Tok'ra could change his mind. "I was more than willing to share information, and trust me, that's rare. Your people are the ones giving me the brick wall." He pocketed the vial, glancing once again at the faded name on his jumpsuit and wondering if the original owner was still alive.

"The commander has many doubts," Jolinar defended Hansen. "She hates the Goa'uld with great passion. Often, she forgets we are Tok'ra and not Goa'uld." She raised her right shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. "It is not only her."

"If you ask me, she's treating me like I was a Tok'ra myself," Jack grumbled. He blinked, groaning mentally as he realized the two were looking at him funny. This was the very reason why he wasn't in the diplomatic corps. More and more, he was beginning to sorely miss the talkative skill of his linguist. "Damn. I mean...back in my reality—"

Jolinar nodded her head, showing she didn't take offense. "Dan-yel has told me the Tok'ra in your world are not as forthcoming with their intelligence as we are."

"What?" Jacob looked mystified. "How the hell do you guys work together then?"

Griping, Jack patted the vial in his pocket, checking to make sure it was still there. "We don't. They help us when they see fit."

Jacob exchanged a frown with Jolinar.

"It is a very different reality than ours," she suggested.

Jacob shook his head. "No shit. Come on. Take me to him."

Jolinar turned to Jack, who gestured to her to go first, and the three went down the hallway to where Daniel was. Jack couldn't help but notice the soldiers ducking into empty rooms to make way, wary eyes tracking their progress as they passed, only a scant few daring to call out a greeting to them.

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He couldn't get away.

Hands clasped his body, pinning him to ice.

He couldn't get away.

He could hear the screaming, people yelling at him, tossing names at him, a voice demanding questions he couldn't understand- asking him where it was when he didn't even know what it was they were looking for. The fog surrounding him was cold, biting, and painful on contact. He could also see eyes glowing everywhere.

Then everything went dark.

No!

He shifted. Perhaps the light had moved away. He didn't care if the next thing he saw were demons so long he could see something.

Endless night.

That was all there was. All he could do was sit there and be very quiet. The darkness was so heavy it lay over him like a suffocating presence.

And the voices still whispering.

_"...of your servant?"_

_A Greek accent faded in and out as another voice spoke louder than the others. "Will...tell us what we want?"_

He couldn't understand the voices. Some sounded like those he knew. Some didn't. They were everywhere, surrounding him while he was alone.

"Doctor O'Neill...where is it?"

They were everywhere.

_"We told him we would not fetch him for two days...Already...hungers for another..."_

_"He has not been...reliable...often...refused to tell you anything..." _

The words...they were important. But he couldn't understand.

"The tablet...where is it?"

Snatches of words. Maddeningly familiar, insanely taunting him with their peculiar meaning. They were important. They were. He knew that, but he didn't know why.

"They said you found his...where is it?"

_"He told us where...hidden...Tau'ri...For which we told him we would reward...gives us the base."_

He couldn't hear it all. He knew he needed to. But he couldn't think. The darkness. The darkness was everywhere...

Daniel frowned in his sleep, brushing away the hands that were on him, roughly moving him around the bunk. He murmured, wondering why was Jack moving him. He was so tired. Jack had told him to get some sleep, and here he was waking him. He stirred, trying to wake, the filaments of the dream clinging to him stubbornly like cobwebs. If Jack was waking him, it must be important.

"I can't find...you have to tell me...Doctor O'Neill..."

So many bad people...

"Tell me!"

Hands that wouldn't let him go, shaking him, hurting him.

_"We...this game...break and tell us. He has been away from it for too long. He can barely survive without...an amusing method of control, rather than kill every Tau'ri we encounter."_

Daniel moaned, struggling to wake as he felt the shaking increase, fingers digging into his flesh with painful desperation. He flung his hands out and felt something slap against his palms. Someone cursed and held his hands tighter. He couldn't move.

_"And then he will die, and we will rule." _

_"Disagree with us again and your pain will increase tenfold, Beloved."_

She was everywhere. And he was alone. He wanted to cry out. He opened his mouth to call for help, finding himself suddenly too weak to do so. A hand clamped over his mouth. He couldn't breathe.

He's coming. He's coming. He needed to tell someone, tell Jack, tell the others.

_"...re'klya has finally learned to respect his god."_

_"You're no god! You're just a monster inside a body you stol-"_

_"I will question him myself when I arrive in f— days!"_

_"I'm not your property—"_

_"...days, General." _

_"Be ready for me..."_

_"...Che mar, he comes early."_

Something was wrong.

Daniel winced, his hands being held too tightly. He muttered, trying to get Jack to let him go. Couldn't Jack see he was hurting him? He could feel himself waking further. Jack was overreacting, probably thinking he was freaking out when it was only a dream.

"Where is it?"

Where's what? Daniel thought fuzzily as he opened his eyes a mere slit. The redness of his shut eyelids lightened as he let in the outside light. Why was Jack asking him all these questions? Why? Where was what?

Another shake and Daniel started. His eyes flew open the rest of the way, and he cried out as light blazed down on him, battering his senses. Hurt. They hurt. Too bright. He couldn't see anything but the light burning into the back of his head. The vague shadow of someone, a stranger, not Jack, hovered over him, surrounded by the painfully bright halo over his head. Everything was spinning, colors danced wildly in front of him, pulling his coherent thoughts into madness. Daniel's head whipped back, his eyes squeezing shut. He'd seen these warped shapes before.

It was the Linvris. They were here.

Daniel twisted away, trying to break free. No one was listening. He wasn't crazy; he wasn't! They were coming. They were! Couldn't they hear them coming? He could hear the footsteps and Lily's heels clicking outside, trying to get in. The more he tried to break free to escape, the more his wrists hurt as they refused to release him.

"Where is it?" the demons screamed, shaking him until his bones rattled. "Where is it? I need it! I need the tablet! They'll take that instead! Tell me! Tell me!"

No. No, they were coming, hurting him and would hurt his friends. Daniel cried out again, the sound almost shrill as the demons shook him so hard his head banged against the back of the bed. He kicked furiously, but the monsters were stronger. Help. Help! Why wouldn't anyone help him?

Hands, shaky hands were on his face, the demon spoke with a trembling voice.

"Please. Please, Doctor O'Neill. You have to tell me. They want to know about the base. I can't give that to them, but they'll take the tablet. Give me the tablet. Please. Please!" The earth seemed to shake as hands moved from his face to his shoulders. "If I don't go back to it, I'll die! It's killing me right now! I have to go back soon! I need it!"

_Leave me alone. I'm not crazy. Don't. Let me go. Let me go. Jack! Don't let them take me! Jack!_

Daniel opened his eyes, the light burning his sight, but he needed to see the monster to beg for release. But no sooner than he did, the blurring of the figure was gone, but the white fire remained. Agony ate at the edges of his awareness. All dreams and weariness fled with the first sharp pang striking his body with a stab like an agonizing dagger.

And he screamed.


	26. Chapter 25

**Author's Note: **Thank you all for your patience. I'm afraid I've overestimated what I can do in my current situation and thought I could get this formatted quickly. My apologies. Thank you for your well wishes. I'm getting better. Just not fast enough, I'm afraid. Again, my apologies.

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**CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE**

Jack didn't realize he'd run past the two Tok'ra to his room until he suddenly found himself already at the door, finding Ferretti, Kawalsky and Simmons wrestling with Daniel on the ground.

"What the hell are you doing?" he barked as he forcefully pulled Ferretti off Daniel's ankles, the restraints he spied in the soldier's hands making his voice sharper than it should. "What are you doing? What are those for?"

"He woke up and forgot about his eyes. Just opened them. Then he started yelling and screaming," Kawalsky gritted as he held tight Daniel's wrists. "They tend to get bad hallucinations with the devices on—damn it!" The captain whipped his head back, barely avoiding a flailing fist from Daniel. "Simmons, hold him down!"

Simmons sat back on his heels a few inches away, the young soldier's brown hair a mess again, his chest heaving, staring at Daniel with wide-eyed panic. Jack barely took notice as he jumped in.

"Back off!" Jack tried to take over, slapping hands away from his friend. The sight of Daniel writhing on the floor, being pinned down, gave him a bad taste in his mouth. "I said back off!"

"No...not crazy...no..." Daniel moaned loudly, his eyes tearing as they were wide open, his pupils pinpricks inside stark whites. He cried out as he felt someone gathering him up and arched his back, trying to get away.

"Easy, buddy. Easy." Jack pulled Daniel closer to him, shouldering his way into the crowd. The archeologist didn't recognize him, panicking as he felt something clamping down on his wrists.

"Nooo! Not...not crazy...stop..."

"Jol, do you have any more neuar for him?" Kawalsky asked, not turning around. "He's getting a bad trip!"

"I thought these delusions stopped with the devices!" Ferretti gasped as he pressed down on the ankles, flinching as the body under him twisted violently. "Shit! He's going nuts!"

"He's not having delusions!" Jack snapped, a well placed swing on Ferretti's hands got them off Daniel's legs. He wondered if that wasn't a mistake though when Daniel's legs lashed out, the crates against the wall smashed on contact. He snarled at Kawalsky who was trying to tighten the restraints to keep him still. "Take those off!"

"Colonel, he's losing—"

Jack's face burned with fury as he struggled to hold on to Daniel, roaring over the twisting body he was vainly trying to protect. "I said take them off before I shove them down your throat!"

Jolinar brushed past Kawalsky and deftly unbuckled the straps, releasing the hands. She held on to the hands though, rubbing hers over Daniel's gently. It didn't get through to Daniel. The young man struggled to fight those who held him although he was clearly weak.

"Selmac," Jolinar called out, sensing the shadow over her. "I can't do it. You must."

Jack stiffened when he saw Jacob Carter approaching, eyes glowing once more. The Tok'ra wove around the arms over Daniel and fished out the pouch he'd given Jolinar. Taking one vial out, Jacob shook his head at the anxiously hovering soldiers. The three backed off, not leaving the small room though.

"Keep him calm," instructed Jacob as he leaned closer to Daniel.

Staring at the blue vial, Jack felt a bit apprehensive. He knew what it did for Daniel, but the doubt was still there. "That's going to help him?"

Jolinar continued rubbing a palm gently over the back of Daniel's hands as she spoke. "He's in pain. His eyes are trying to heal. This will calm him and speed the healing." She peered over her shoulder. "I need something to cover his eyes. Keep him from trying again before it's time."

Wordlessly, Kawalsky rummaged around the crates. Jack could hear tearing of fabric but didn't look up. He stayed where he was, arms tightly around Daniel's torso to keep him still, murmuring low.

"It's okay, buddy."

"N-not...not cra—"

"No. You're not. I know. I know. No one's taking you anywhere."

"D-don't..." Daniel stuttered, his eyes reddish and swollen.

Something black draped over Daniel's face, and Jack started. Gazing up, he saw Kawalsky's grim expression, eyes giving him a silent apology as he moved over to Daniel's head and carefully tied the makeshift bandanna over the anguished eyes, blocking the sensitive orbs from the light.

Daniel whimpered.

Jack's heart ached at the sound. It was something he only heard once in a storage closet a year ago while sitting in the dark with shattered glass all around. A sound Daniel wasn't even aware of giving as he was rocked by Jack, caught in the throes of withdrawal, whimpering, moaning when he couldn't break free of the longing for the Goa'uld device. Withdrawal broke his reserves, crumbled his defenses, and Daniel had let out one long syllable of misery which summed up everything in his life that had gone so wrong. Jack heard it then. Only then. Only once.

Until now.

Jack wanted to go somewhere and empty his guts.

But instead, he tightened his hold, head bowed over Daniel's ears. "Just until your eyes get better. It's okay," he whispered, making sure only his friend could hear. "You'll get through this. This will all go away soon. I swear. Sh..."

Daniel turned his head, face scrunching towards the familiar sound, the frantic rasping slowing to soft gasping of breath instead. Jack nodded towards Jacob, his eyes glued to the vial as the Tok'ra came closer and closer with the liquid.

On contact with the vial, Daniel flinched, twisting his head away.

"Daniel."

Daniel stilled. He cringed a little when he felt the glass tip towards him, the strange taste on his lips. However, at the touch of Jack's fingers lifting his chin towards it, recognizing the sensation as someone safe, Daniel instinctively opened his mouth and drank whatever it was pressed against his lips with the utmost trust.

Jack couldn't do anything more than sit there, holding his friend, watching as a stray drop trickled down his chin as Daniel was fed the liquid like a child.

"Colonel." Jolinar pulled Jack's cramped fingers away from Daniel. He looked up with tired eyes, realizing he could barely move to grab him back. He sat there, watching stupidly as the two Tok'ra took over, easing him away from Jack, guiding the rest of the neuar into Daniel, making sure he drank every drop. After a few seconds, Daniel settled into a deeper sleep with a soft intake of breath, head falling back against Jolinar's arms.

Jacob or Selmac, Jack couldn't tell at this point, brushed back the fringes of Daniel's sweat dampened hair, examining the puncture wounds on the temples and grunted. At the sound, Jack came to his senses.

"Well?" he asked tightly.

"He's better." With that, Jacob rose, pulling Daniel along with him. Jack stood, hissing under his breath. The mad run to the room and then bending his back awkwardly on the cold floor had not helped matters. Jack took good care not to slouch, straightening with a ramrod back, his muscles screaming for him to stop. He ignored it by deliberately rounding back his shoulders to loosen the knots and helped swing Daniel's legs onto the bunk, quickly covering him with the parka left crumpled on the floor.

Kawalsky took the restraints from Jack. He quietly tossed them into one of the crates Daniel had inadvertently destroyed. Jack caught a glimpse of another set in there, and his head whipped up sharply.

"It can get very bad at times," the captain would only say, weary eyes telling him another story. Kawalsky gestured to the others to leave. Ferretti murmured an apology to Jack, who wasn't really listening. Simmons stood there a moment longer, staring at Daniel before he left as well.

Kawalsky shifted from foot to foot. Finally, he cleared his throat and left awkwardly.

Brushing her hands on her thighs, Jolinar stood up, studying Daniel for a moment as he slept sprawled on the bunk bed, face hidden within the pile of parkas they'd laid on top of him. Then she turned her attention to Jack, critically examining him as if seeing him for the first time. Silently, she extended her hand, another glass container of neuar in her palm.

"For your back," she said.

Jack pursed his lips.

"Colonel O'Neill?" Jolinar was puzzled as to why he wasn't taking it.

"You said it was a stimulant, right?" Jack said softly. It bothered him that he'd jumped too quickly when they offered the neuar without thinking of the possibility of aftereffects. Daniel's scream was too much like before and he let Jacob pour that in him just to make it stop. "It's not addictive or anything, is it?"

Jacob frowned at the question. Selmac's voice came out though. "Only if taken when not needed. Why?"

"Nothing." Taking the offered vial, Jack popped the little cork and emptied the thing into his throat. He grimaced at the slightly sour taste. But as it slid down, his eyes widened at the sweet spicy taste before a tingling swept through his body.

"Whoa." The twinges hovering in his back were gone. Jack lifted the empty container and gawked at it with amazement.

"The system lords reward this to their generals," Jolinar explained. "Rather than let them use the royal chambers or use the sarcophagus."

"Sarcophagus?" A feeling of dread came over Jack, and he lowered the vial. "This is a substitute?"

"For when the other is not available. The Tok'ra do not—"

"Do not use it, I know," Jack finished for her. Jolinar arched an eyebrow in surprise.

Jacob returned, his roughened voice expectant. "Encountered one of those in your reality, Colonel?"

"You could say that." Jack dropped the empty container in Jolinar's hands and sighed. He sat down on the chair by the bed, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Should I be expecting more of what just happened?" He waved towards Daniel.

"No. I saw his eyes were adapting a bit to the light. It should not be long before his vision returns. Then everything else should adjust back accordingly."

Jack stared at Jolinar, at Sha're's face. "Uh...great." He glanced back to Daniel. "When?"

"Maybe another day," Jacob answered. He folded his arms. "Colonel. We don't mean to be pushy, but we really have to know what you have on Ra. And of John O'Neill and his brother."

Jolinar cut in. "The tablet. Dan-yel mentioned it is with Dan O'Neill."

Jack gave her a funny look at the word Dan-yel. "I spoke with the commander about going back. She wanted to confer with her leaders which I guess were—"

"George and Harry." Nodding, Jacob turned around as if realizing the door was still open and discreetly shut it. Jack found it odd he did so, the Tok'ra actually looking down the halls to see if anyone was around first.

"Listen. I have a feeling my daughter Sammy isn't going to tell you everything. But time is running short. From what we've been hearing, Ra was scheduled to head over here ahead of harvesting in a little over four days. I know they got the first tablet, but what of the second?"

Jack shook his head. "Last I heard, Dan was still trying to crack the code without it. We don't know yet where the second one is."

"I think I know..." a faint voice replied instead of Jack.

Spinning around, Jack found Daniel struggling to sit up, a hand to his head as he made a face.

"Are you well?" Jolinar inquired. She cocked her head sideways when Daniel stiffened.

"Jack?" Daniel called out weakly.

"Yeah."

Hand still to the head, Daniel hunched forward and coughed. "What happened?"

Jacob stepped forward to answer. "You had a mild attack when you woke."

Pausing, Daniel raised his head in question.

The former general smiled and touched his knee briefly. "Jacob Carter, Doctor Jackson."

"Oh...hello," Daniel returned faintly. He leaned sideways against the sub wall. "Mild? I..." He froze when he felt the bandanna around his eyes when his hand drifted down. "Jack?"

Pulling Daniel's hand away from the covering, Jack explained. "You opened your eyes before when you were waking up. That's what probably caused the attack." _Or flashback_, Jack thought, remembering Daniel's semi-coherent pleas.

Scowling in self-disgust, Daniel muttered "Great" before he grimaced once more. His hand flew up to his head again.

"Dan-yel," Jolinar pressed. "You have said you think you know where the second one may be?"

"When Jack started asking me where the tablet was, it got me thinking." Sitting straighter, Daniel made a face. Despite being unable to see, he could still feel the room spinning underneath him. He could taste the spicy liquid in his mouth, recognizing the flavor vaguely as if he'd had it before.

Jack was puzzled, frowning as he asked, "When was that, Daniel?"

"Before." Daniel waved at the room absently.

"Uh...I just got here."

Daniel raised his head. "Oh...You weren't here before I must have dreamt the others." He shuddered.

"Doctor Jackson." Selmac came forward, voice tinged with impatience.

"Oh, sorry." Running a hand through his hair, Daniel took a deep breath to collect himself. "Jolinar, you had more contact with Machello. Did he ever mention where he was caught?"

"In Queen Shyla's mines."

"Shyla's..." Daniel stilled, his hands stiff over his lap. "I see...did he ever mention the place he was hiding out before that?"

"Never. We had hoped to find the location recorded on the first tablet. Originally, I was to ask him, but he was executed by Seth before I could reach him in time." Jolinar shook her head sadly. "Machello perhaps is the only one who knows now."

"Not really," Jack said quietly, guessing what Daniel was saying. "We've met him before. That's what you're thinking, isn't it, Daniel?"

Daniel nodded. "If the Goa'ulds didn't know his hiding place, maybe it's been left alone all this time. And maybe that's where it is."

"Where?" Selmac cut in impatiently. "We do not understand."

"Machello's hideout." Daniel eased slowly off the bunk, relieved to find himself able to push away from the bed. Daniel straightened cautiously, shaking his hand when he felt Jolinar's smaller hand touching him on the shoulder, silently offering help. He managed a smile, one he hoped conveyed the confidence and strength he wasn't really feeling and took a step forward in the darkness. His knees wobbled, and he heard Jack curse.

A strong grip wrapped itself on his elbow. "We're not going now, Daniel. We've got to let the others know and figure out a way to get there."

"I need to write down the symbols," Daniel protested faintly. "And..." He stopped. His shoulders drooped in defeat.

"Daniel?" Jack's hand tightened over his arm.

Daniel gave a sad kind of a smile towards his way. "You wouldn't happen to have memorized the symbols...would you, Jack?"

Jack leaned back, eyeing Daniel with confusion. "Huh? Why do you ask—oh." He also let Daniel go when it struck him.

Daniel couldn't see.

Jack didn't like the sound of the laugh Daniel gave as he tugged away from his hold.

"The Stargate can be turned manually. We do not have tablets or readers to spare, but you could feel the reliefs of the symbols on the Chaapa'ai itself," Selmac suggested.

Jack bit back a retort about the idea. The last thing Daniel needed was to be wandering out there, groping some gray granite rock, trying to make out symbols he couldn't see in front of him.

Jolinar agreed with her comrade's suggestion. "It is a good idea. Before I was about to get a translator tablet for Dan O'Neill, I was told he learned to do the same after his brother secured him here on the base."

"Fine."

Jack blinked. Daniel was standing straighter, firmly pulling Jolinar's hand away from him. "Show me. Please."

"Daniel—"

"Jack...I have to try. I can't just sit here." Daniel turned towards Jack's voice. "And we need the tablet. Asgards or not, the information in there could prove useful."

"Come on." In his anxiety, Jacob grabbed Daniel by the arm. Jack snarled at the Tok'ra.

"Hang on! I'll do it!" Jack purposefully stepped in between Jacob and his friend, not liking how they were pulling him around like he was on a leash. He glared at Jacob, the Tok'ra raising his hands to show he didn't mean any harm by it.

"Was just going to lead him out to the cavern, Colonel."

"Jack." Daniel stood there, mild exasperation curving his lips as he shook his head. "I'm not resting any more. I have to go."

"Fine," grated Jack. He steered his friend to the door. "I'm going with you."

"I'm—"

"Look, I'd rather be doing something than waiting around here, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the powers that be to summon me." Jack gave Daniel's sleeve a gentle yank. "Come on, big guy."

Sighing, Daniel allowed Jack to navigate him out of the room.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

"Your brother has left for the planet once again."

Dan raised his head wearily. Teal'c's voice seemed to make Doctor Jackson's room rumble as if beset with earthquakes. He grunted, dropping his hands to the tablet, his numb fingers trying to feel out the frustrating mystery symbol he'd been concentrating on for the past hour.

"Do you require something to eat?"

"Not really," he muttered. Despite asking for Teal'c to keep him company, the questions were beginning to grate on his nerves.

"Dan O'Neill." Teal'c came forward as the young man hunched forward suddenly, hands dropping the tablet, going right for his chest. Gasping, Dan didn't respond as Teal'c braced him for another attack. Minor quivers escalated to violent shaking, Dan wheezing as his body clenched into one tight muscle, air forced out of his lungs without his permission.

Dan marked the end of the attack with a quick flick of his hand, pushing Teal'c's off his shoulder.

"I'm okay," he rasped.

"They appear to have worsened," Teal'c told him. Dan only laughed bitterly.

"Well then, I shouldn't be wasting time, should I?" He sighed heavily, shaking his head. "Sorry. That didn't come out right. In fact, nothing is!" He thumped a fist on the table, not realizing Daniel's mug did a little dance when he did, spinning towards the floor until Teal'c caught it before it could shatter.

The Jaffa noted the cracked mug, looking very small in his large hands, was something Daniel had received as a gift from Major Carter; hieroglyphics inscribing his name circled the glass. Worn from use, cracked at the handle, Daniel Jackson apparently hadn't the heart to throw it out. So it remained in use at the corner of his cluttered desk along with the grayish lump of a rock O'Neill gave to Daniel Jackson "as a joke" he said when Daniel Jackson unwrapped it. To this day, Teal'c still did not understand the humor behind the uninteresting small boulder although Daniel Jackson had rolled his eyes in disgust when receiving it. He would have to ask them when they returned.

Eyes back on the mug, Teal'c decided this was something that would be sorely missed if broken and walked over to the bookshelf. He set it down carefully on one of the emptier sections.

"It's useless."

Teal'c turned back towards the slumped posture.

Dan was talking towards the empty space where Teal'c had been. "It's hopeless, isn't it? Without the tablet or the key Machello talked about, we can't get into Ra's ship. Hell, we can't even get out of here!" He thumped another fist on the desk, the bracelet on his wrist making a faint clanging sound when it made contact with the table before dropping his head within his folded arms.

"There is still time."

"Four days, seventeen hours and six fu-freaking minutes." Dan didn't lift his head, his voice muffled, clearly angry. "And I can't make heads or tails of the damn thing!"

"As you said there are four days, seventeen hours and six minutes, Dan O'Neill." Teal'c wondered why the scholar was getting more and more upset. Teal'c debated picking up the wall phone and calling Doctor Frasier.

"Sorry."

Teal'c paused.

"Why do you apologize, Dan O'Neill?"

Dan laughed oddly. "For being such a head case."

The larva in Teal'c's belly stirred uneasily as if his memory bothered even the Goa'uld inside. He frowned, the grim line of his mouth intimidating should anyone walk in and see it, but Dan was oblivious to it.

"I can't seem to think clearly." Dan dropped his hand. He sighed deeply, feeling the shoulders pull down with the intake. "I can see the sound fragments, the pattern. It's Greek, but the vowels seem off..." He trailed off. He stopped massaging his hand. "I can't see the pattern." His voice lowered further. "It's out there. The answer. I just can't seem to reach it!"

"You are upset."

"You're damn right, I am! We need this thing!"

"No." Teal'c picked up the tablet and set it in front of Dan. "You are upset about something else." He observed the stoic face tilting towards his direction, and he boldly added, "Your brother."

"I did what I had to do. I know that. You know that. I'm not upset about him."

Dan was trying so hard to lie, to convince Teal'c, convince himself, that Teal'c didn't challenge his claim. The Jaffa tried another tactic.

"Perhaps with a bit of rest and nourishment?" Teal'c touched Dan's arm again.

"I shall have someone bring something up for you."

Dan sighed. He knew when he was beaten. "Fine."

"Rest?" Teal'c only spoke one word, but it was firm.

"No. Not now." _Later it'll be forever._ Dan swallowed and held the tablet higher. "I have to figure this out. I have to. I'm close to breaking the accompanying text. My world...my brother...needs this."

Teal'c wanted to say that if his comrades returned—no—_when_ they returned, the Asgard would be contacted, and the tablet would be pointless. But if Dan O'Neill wanted to keep busy and forget he was dying so be it.

"You're staying?" Dan asked hesitantly.

"Unless you wish me to leave."

Dan smiled sadly. It was all the company he could take. Not John's because he couldn't. Not Fraiser's because her constant hovering only gave him a painful reminder of what he had to look forward to. Teal'c was asking a lot of questions, sure. But he suspected it was unusual for the Jaffa to do so. Apparently, making conversation was a new thing for the alien. Dan could tolerate it. He could. Peace and quiet he'd have later on.

Dan nodded his thanks and took a deep breath. Then another and another until he could feel the fog lift from his focus. The aches and pains distracting him before were still there, but Dan begged them to leave him alone for a moment.

With that, Dan embraced the tablet and began again, from the beginning, telling himself no more delaying. He needed to finish this now.

Or never.

SG1SG1SG1

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Daniel thought it was cold before, but now he knew better.

Teeth chattering as he was led out of the submarine and carefully down the tower's ladder under Jack's verbal guidance on where to put his feet, Daniel barely felt Jack draping another parka over the one he already wore. Daniel couldn't even nod his thanks, the shivering sapping all his body's remaining strength.

"It is a good idea. Before I was about to get a translator tablet for Dan O'Neill, I was told he learned to do the same after his brother secured him here on the base."

Daniel seriously didn't know how his counterpart did it; the symbols he could recognize immediately on paper were hard to conjure up in his mind.

"We're here." Jolinar's announcement echoed loudly throughout the cavern.

Jack looked around him, realizing their small group was attracting attention from many. Some looked at them with fascination, gawking at them like specimens under a microscope. Some looked at them with wariness and doubt. And then there were those who looked at them, knowing Jack's world was not like this, their eyes filled with...

Envy.

It was that emotion that made Jack look away.

"Colonel." Ferretti stood there, appearing to be jogging in place to ward off the chill and nodded his greetings. "General Carter's telling me you need the Stargate?" He eyed Daniel with interest, his narrow face revealing more sympathy than anything else.

"Where's the Stargate?" Daniel interrupted the soldier.

Taken aback by the soft impatience in his tone, Ferretti silently took Daniel's wrist and guided it towards the cold black ring, imbedded in the cave wall, the center hollowed out from the constant column of light that would spiral out in front, then to the back.

Jack watched as Daniel gingerly sat down on the ice, hissing under his breath as his legs folded under him. O'Neill winced as he thought of how cold it must be, zipped up his own borrowed parka he had hastily put on and debated whether he should ask for a pillow or something Daniel could sit on instead. But he also knew how that would look. So Jack kept his mouth shut, resigning himself to keeping a very close eye for any discomfort.

"Well?" Jacob asked, sounding impatient as Daniel felt the next symbol on the track, fingers shaking as they tried to trace the contours despite the chill hindering his motor skills. The Tok'ra didn't seem to realize Jack was sending daggers at him with his glare. Jolinar pulled at her comrade's sleeve, shaking her head silently.

"Give it time," she whispered.

"Time that we may not have to spare," Jacob replied, trying to keep his voice low, but Jack saw Daniel's shoulders stiffen.

"Why don't you guys check with Commander Hansen?" Jack jumped in. "I'll stay with Daniel and help Ferretti turn the Stargate."

Jacob hesitated. Jolinar made the decision for him before he could protest.

"That is an excellent suggestion, Colonel O'Neill. We should compare information with Hammond and Maybourne."

"We will leave you to your devices," she murmured. She straightened, arranging her outfit as if it were the golden bead dress Jack first saw her in and looped her arm around Jacob's to pull him away. But he saw her look back once.

"Should we turn the device to the next symbol?" Ferretti inquired, watching the top of Daniel's head shake as he felt the symbol once more from where he was sitting.

"Just a s-second," Daniel chattered before he bit on his lower lip to keep it steady. His legs were barely sitting still, the cold scratching at his legs from the icy floor beneath him. But they weren't as bad as his hands. They felt like someone was taking small needles, poking ruthlessly at his knuckles, his palms. And those areas that weren't stabbed constantly by the chill were already numb beyond comfort.

Standing there, Jack crossed his arms in front of him, more to keep warm than anything else. He could see Ferretti rocking on his heels back and forth, but he suspected it was more from the cold, too. He couldn't imagine how they could work around here. The chill was numbing his face already, and his ears felt like they'd fallen off.

Daniel crouched there, head close to the Stargate, hands on the surface, and a smile crept over Jack's face. Daniel had an intense look of concentration. Jack could see it in the mouth, teeth gnawing on the lower lip, brow above the bandanna furrowing every so often as his fingers danced along the carvings on gray quartz.

Leaning against the Stargate above Daniel, glancing at it worriedly wondering if it was suddenly going to activate on him, Jack held back the smile as he saw Daniel was muttering under his breath. Hunched over, shoulders forward, head so low it touched his chest, Daniel was the perfect image of focused thinking with his soft murmuring and fingers brushing across the symbols. It was surprising how reassuring that could look- the usual not aware of what was going on, a "don't bother me, I'm translating" posture.

_Carter hollered the storms were approaching. Checking around, Jack groaned. As usual, the archeologist was not here as agreed. _

_"Sir?" Breathless, Carter bounded up to him. "We have maybe an hour before the storm hits. The geo—"_

_"Yeah, yeah. I know, Carter. Believe me, I am not trying to stay here in Club Bugs." Waving at the air, Jack noted the giant insects buzzing around his cap before were gone. The only good thing about the storm. "I told Teal'c and Daniel two hours. That deadline was twenty minutes ago."_

_Carter reached for her radio, but he stopped her._

_"I already tried to raise them." He started jogging quickly to reach the small rise a few meters ahead. "Your storm thingie is probably mucking up our signal."_

_"Geo—"_

_Jack shot her a look. Luckily, Carter had been around with this team long enough to know when to shut up. Unlike certain other scientists who would go unmentioned until he was thoroughly pissed off. "Daniel!" he called through cupped hands. "Let's go! We're packing it up!"_

_No response._

_Frowning, Jack tried the radio again, not losing his pace as he reached the small hill where he knew the ruins would be. "Daniel? Teal'c?"_

_"Sir." Carter stopped in her tracks and for a moment, Jack thought something was wrong until she broke into a grin. Standing on the top of the hill, looking down below, she chuckled. "They're okay, sir."_

_"I know that," Jack grumbled, tilting back his cap as he took a look for himself. He groaned when he saw Daniel, still hunched over the same damn rock he'd first found the moment they'd seen the ruins. Teal'c spied them above and leaned towards Daniel to tell him. The archeologist nodded, eyes still on the rock, waving listlessly to Teal'c. The Jaffa arched his eyebrow, even from this distance Jack could tell, and glanced back over to them._

_Jack shook his head. "For crying—" He shot Carter another glare at her amused smile. He threw up his hands in disgust and jogged down the hill to where Daniel was._

_"You're late," he groused to Teal'c, knowing it wasn't really his fault. That lay with the young scholar bent over the large carved stone in utter fascination. _

_"I have reminded Daniel Jackson of our time, but he said..." Teal'c cocked his head as he recalled the words and repeated them in the same flat voice "Yes, yes, I know. In a minute." He frowned mildly. "That was thirty of your Earth minutes ago, O'Neill."_

_"Daniel." Jack had no time for this. Hands on his hips, standing over the archeologist, Jack waited for the man to look up. "Daniel—"_

_"Oh!" Daniel blinked._

_Grinning, Jack opened his mouth to scold him when Daniel snapped his fingers._

_"Not destruction. It's drastic change." Daniel smiled to himself and fumbled around for his little notebook._

_Jack's smile faded as he watched Daniel go back to his scribbling and mumbling. "Daniel, it's time to go."_

_"Yes, yes, I know. In a minute, Teal'c."_

_Jack arched an eyebrow of his own, looking over to Teal'c who returned the gesture as if silently saying "See?" He growled under his breath. There was only one thing left to do._

_Leaning close to Daniel's ear, Jack took a deep breath and let it out in a loud "DANIEL!"_

_Yelping, Daniel jumped, ramming into Jack's chin, startled out of his concentration._

_"Sir, are you alright?" Carter said in a suspiciously unsteady voice. She trotted over to Daniel, much to Jack's irritation, to help him up._

_"You didn't need to yell," Daniel said plaintively, rubbing his sore ear as he rose. "You could have called me when it was time." He readjusted his hat. Grumbling, he brushed off his pants, smiling his thanks as a very cheerful Carter handed him back his notebook. _

_"We did, Daniel. Teal'c tried. And I tried and all it got me was a few fillings loosened." Jack shook a finger at him before massaging his jaw. Damned if Jackson didn't have such a hard head. His teeth felt like they'd been knocked loose. He snarled at Daniel who had the nerve to look like he didn't know what Jack was so upset about. "It's time to go."_

_"But—"_

_"Teal'c!"_

_Daniel blinked, wondering why Jack suddenly called Teal'c's name until he felt a strong grip on his arm and flushed._

_Jack grinned smugly. "I should have done this long ago. We are going now. When the storms pass, we'll be back. But we're leaving right...now." He narrowed his eyes at Daniel. "Otherwise, I'll have Teal'c carry you back home, and I can imagine the gossip then, hm?"_

_Daniel looked at Teal'c and blinked. The Jaffa merely looked back down at him with his right eyebrow raised. Daniel turned back to Jack._

_"You wouldn't..." he trailed off when Jack folded his arms in front. Daniel sighed. "You would." He picked up his backpack, shaking his head. He didn't look upset, rather, a bit amused as he followed quickly after Jack._

_Jack only grinned to himself._

"Jack." Daniel's voice was low, quiet, yet it was enough to draw Jack's attention away from his thoughts.

"How's it going?" the colonel whispered, his arms on a bent knee, the other leg resting on his knee on the ground. The ice was already chilling the pants leg, and Jack switched to balancing on the balls of his feet instead. He rocked closer to Daniel and touched his shoulder. He was stunned to feel the minute tremors under his palm. His voice sharpened with concern. "Daniel?"

"I..." Damiel bit his lower lip harder, a tiny trickle of blood gleaming under white teeth. "Can you describe to me what the symbol looks like?"

Jack was taken aback. He raised his eyes and saw Ferretti's double looking at them curiously, an almost hopeful expression on the younger soldier's face. Jack lowered his head and his voice as he whispered back. "You can't tell?"

It was the wrong thing to say. Jack couldn't see Daniel's eyes, a usual giveaway, but he saw the mouth stop worrying over the lower lip, the Adam's apple bobbing up and down as Daniel slowly shook his head.

"I can't see," he made a strange sound. "I mean...feel the symbol out. I can't envision it in my head."

Jack looked where Daniel's hands were, trembling fingers stroking the edge of an upside down V. He closed his eyes briefly. It was the one symbol he knew.

"Jack?"

"It's the chevron for Earth, Daniel."

Fingers stopped.

"The seventh symbol..." Daniel choked. He looked ill, swallowing visibly at the information. "God, Jack. The seventh symbol. I found it the first time I saw the Stargate and here I am, can't even recognize the—"

"Easy. Easy." Jack checked to make sure Ferretti didn't hear. The soldier was leaning on the Stargate, head turned to give them privacy, and his shoulders slumped. The soldier knew. "You just have to keep trying until—"

"I have been trying!" Daniel hissed back. He dropped his hands, bunching them to tight fists that shook over his lap. "I tried tracing the contours in my head as I went along, but I kept losing track!" Daniel shook his head. Abruptly, he banged the Stargate, his fist not even making a sound. Jack caught the icy, reddened hand before Daniel could try again.

"Whoa. That isn't going to help. You'll get it. Just give it time."

"We don't have the time. They don't have the time." Daniel yanked his hand away from Jack's, waving his left wrist at the colonel, the gold circlet flashing under the gleam of the lights strung up around the cavern. "We promised them we would help them. I told Captain O'Neill that we could do this. But now…"

"Take it easy." Jack soothed, letting his hand rub Daniel's hunched back, his fingers rubbing along Daniel's spine, Jack ignored the curious glances Ferretti kept casting over his shoulder as the younger soldier tried not to eavesdrop. Jack placed his hand over Daniel's on the inner track, pressing down for a brief moment, letting his relatively warm palm take away the chill he could feel biting into Daniel's stiff hand. He gently curled his own fingers around Daniel's index finger and guided it along the chevron, tracing the straight lines, the serif at the bottom before back up to the heavily outlined O.

"Can you see it now?" Jack asked gently.

Daniel had tilted his head towards the Stargate, jaw set as he concentrated.

"Can you?" Jack repeated the motions again.

Biting his lip, Daniel slowly nodded. "I think so."

"Why don't we try another one?" Jack asked softly, heartened to see the back straighten as Daniel nodded more briskly. Daniel was frowning, furrowed brow visible above the bandanna around his eyes. Jack raised the hand he still held to the next symbol they could reach. "Okay...How about this one?"

"What does it look like?" Daniel asked faintly.

"Ah..." Jack cocked his head, eyeing it critically. "It looks like a dancing table."

Daniel choked, laughing at the description. Jack grinned and squeezed the hand he held over the new symbol.

"Hey, that's what it looks like."

"Dancing table..." Muttering, Daniel shook his head. He took a deep breath and boldly reached for the symbol, pulling Jack's hand along with him. Palm flat on the stone, Daniel bent his head, trying to envision the flat edges he could sense. He smiled briefly as he felt Jack guiding him properly around the edges, making sure he stayed within the section of the same symbol. The warm palm over his knuckles felt like a blazing fire. Daniel could feel his shivering ease off, his hands steady and the heavy feeling in his chest lessen as he allowed Jack to steer him correctly along the symbol. Tips scratching at cold rock, Daniel felt like a human chisel, tapping, poking, scraping along the straight lines.

"Crater!" Daniel blurted, a faint smile spreading across his lips.

Jack studied the symbol himself. He'd never bothered to memorize the names of all the symbols. Some he knew by heart; some he knew because Daniel had spoken of them often. He was content to let Daniel or Carter fiddle with the DHD so long as everyone knew the seven symbols to get home.

"Jack?" Daniel pulled at his hand, wondering why his companion wasn't moving him to the next symbol.

The colonel shook his head. "Nothing. Let's try another, shall we?" He pulled towards one in the opposite direction, spying a knowing smile on Ferretti's face out of the corner of his eye. Judging by the grin, Jack had a sneaky suspicion John O'Neill must have done something similar for Dan. He looked down at Daniel's bowed head, back to work already, and he smiled as well.


	27. Chapter 26

**CHAPTER TWENTY SIX**

"Damn it!"

Sam flinched at the explosion as she peeled away the charred remains of the BDU. Avoiding John O'Neill's eyes, she examined the reddened skin under the scorched sleeve.

"Looks okay," she murmured as she heard Ferretti behind her punching the symbols for home, concerned soldiers lingering around the platform.

Sam eyed the paper target standing in front of the mirrored wall, the stand blackened from many blasts of the staff weapon brushing by it. She frowned at John. "That was a close call, Captain. You were standing a bit too close to the target zone. When Anderson fired, you shouldn't have jumped the other way—"

"I forgot. Okay?" John gritted out. He didn't mention that he was standing there, seeing Dan and Daniel over and over again being grabbed by the damned Jaffa. The image was so vivid, to a point where he could almost smell the battle's smoke, he took a step forward to stop them when he heard a warning cry just before the staff weapon fired with an announcing whine. It barely touched him, but it felt like he was burning in hell as his left shoulder screamed with agony.

"Captain?" Sam asked worriedly when she saw the man was still staring at the mirrored wall.

"I don't need to go back," John rasped. He stood and rounded back his shoulder for show. "Let's get on with it."

"That's a serious burn."

"It's a damn sunburn, Major! Nothing more!" John picked up his rifle, roughly slinging it over his shoulder so it hung off his right hip. He hissed when the strap touched the burn.

"Ferretti, get over there and let them know we need Doctor—"

"I don't need a doctor!" The snappish reply rang in the chamber. With the lightning having been silent for so long, John's protest sounded loud. Too loud.

Sam stopped. In fact, everyone did, including the archeologists all the way in the inner rooms. Some even poked their heads out in inquiry.

John lowered his voice, looking at Sam. She was taken aback by the plea in his dark eyes.

"Don't waste them on me. Let them concentrate on my brother, okay?"

"Captain—"

"I'll be okay. Once this is all over, I'll be okay." He waved her off and walked back to the front of the wall, ready to begin again.

Sam glanced over her shoulder and mouthed "Frasier" at the major. Ferretti nodded and crouched down to the probe in front of the shimmering Stargate, using the radio transmitter. She looked back towards the captain, the tensed shoulders visible under the uniform, the too rigid stance as he waited. A stance Sam had encountered once before.

_Racing, dodging soldiers as they flattened themselves against the walls to give her room, _

_Sam didn't have a chance to apologize, nor did she care._

_"Excuse me!" she shouted as she shrugged into her pack as she ran, not wasting any time to get back to the planet. Up the stairs, around the corner, she reached the observation room just as the first chevron lit._

_"Ready, sir," she panted at O'Neill's back as he stood there staring at the window. _

_The colonel said nothing._

_She was about to repeat herself, maybe he hadn't heard when she spied Teal'c standing a way off to her left, giving her a silent warning look. Puzzled, unsure why the Jaffa wanted her to keep quiet, she opened her mouth, walking towards the colonel when she saw his reflection in the window._

_Sam stopped._

_Grim faced, tight lipped, the colonel looked nothing like she'd ever seen him. Arms folded in front of him, eyes narrowed to black dots on his taut face, Colonel O'Neill was glaring at the activating Stargate as if he blamed it for Daniel's fate._

_Never had she seen such a face, distorted by the glass, unclear in its image. She knew it would be worse if he turned around and pinned the expression on her. The back, the ruler straight shoulders, told her in bold type that this man was not to be approached._

_"Chevron three engaged," the technician whispered. Sam winced. Apparently, O'Neill's state had not gone unnoticed and had shriveled the young soldier's usual declaration of the chevrons to a barely audible squeak._

_"Colonel O'Neill." Sam heard General Hammond coming up behind him. "Is your team ready?"_

_"What's left of it," was forced out from clamped lips._

_Sam cringed, exchanging a look with Teal'c. She wondered if the colonel even realized who was talking to him._

_General Hammond didn't seem to mind. In fact, his face was schooled into a sympathetic one. The war veteran understood completely what it was like to leave a teammate behind. Sam, in all her years in the Air Force, had it happen twice but it had never felt so acutely painful until now._

_Sam bid the Stargate to hurry up and dial, surprising herself with her own impatience._

_"Chevron seven locked."_

_The Stargate burst into a pool of light and sparkles. O'Neill turned to look over his shoulder, and she saw the dark brown eyes had indeed turned to black and gulped. She didn't see determination. She didn't see the vow he had left unsaid back in the infirmary when she came out of hypnosis. What she saw was fury. Fury over what had happened. Fury with something he had done or not done. And the outright bold declaration that he would go to hell and back to get what he wanted._

_To get back their friend. One of their own. _

_General Hammond didn't back down. He nodded to the colonel, waved towards the Stargate and said very softly, but firmly. "Bring him back, Colonel."_

_Logic and respect for authority returned to dull the endless night to a brooding brown, and O'Neill nodded. _

_"We will," O'Neill said, his voice saying there was no room for otherwise._

_Instead of being reassured, Sam gulped, wondering what would happen if they didn't get Daniel back. _

"Major?" Ferretti spoke up from behind. She twisted around and saw him nod. Medic on the way. She gave a curt bob of her head and was back to John. She nearly jumped when she saw the captain was looking back at her, eyes slit angrily.

"Let's do this again, guys," she said abruptly, turning around so she wouldn't see the look of betrayal on John's face. She'd never seen it on her CO's face before but damn if it wasn't unnerving to see on a similar face instead.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

"What do you think?" George Hammond, adjunct leader of the North Americas,

whispered to Maybourne.

"I think one John O'Neill was bad enough. But two?" Maybourne replied in a low voice. He chuckled dryly.

Standing on the bridge of the USS Cleveland, parallel to the Los Angeles class sub Miro, the two generals watched as Colonel Jack O'Neill was turning the Stargate's inner track with Ferretti before dropping back down to Jackson to help him. Even from this distance, they could see the care the older man was taking, aiding unseeing eyes by moving the hands across the carved stone.

Maybourne sniffed, squaring his shoulders back as he zipped up his parka higher.

"Hansen was saying they weren't brothers? And from some alternate dimension?"

Hammond shrugged. "So they claim."

"You don't believe their story?"

"Do you?"

Maybourne scratched the small scar off his left eyebrow. "I want to. I really do. Nice to think someone out there got away from that bastard."

Hammond chuckled. "You're getting soft for your age, Harry."

The other general snorted. "Yeah. Running around with kids barely half your age can do that!" He sobered. "I tried contacting Orleans before we left for here, George. Got no word."

"Could be out on reconn."

"Or their base could have been uncovered." Maybourne scowled at the icy cavern below.

Hammond's face tightened, lines around his eyes crinkling as he frowned. "Back to your spy theory again, I see."

"I know you think I'm paranoid."

Hammond cut him off. "I don't think, I _know_. Jesus, Harry, you've been like this since Area 51!"

Rolling his eyes, Maybourne grunted. "Well, I was right, wasn't I? Those green men we had should have been enough to tell us to leave the Stargate alone."

"Wouldn't have done us any good. I think old Ray would have come anyway."

"Ra."

Hammond gave his comrade a look saying he knew that.

Sighing, Maybourne cocked his head to the side, hearing Hansen below talking with Jolinar and Carter. "She seems to think they're legit."

Hammond snorted. "I know. Who would have thought? She had Jacob in the brig for three days as she deliberated on whether to trust her own father or not."

"That's different. He was a Tok'ra." Maybourne waved towards the pair below. "They're not. They're human. X-rays confirm it. Jolinar said she didn't feel any larvae in them. They're kosher, George."

Nodding, Hammond didn't appear to doubt that. "So where does that leave us? The Asgards they were talking about?"

"Either that or with our original plan."

Making a face, Hammond muttered, "Breaking into Ra's ship."

Maybourne nodded solemnly. "Asgards or not, we need those ships if victory is going to last."

"And what about your theoretical spy? We can't move on that contingency if there's a spy telling them everything we do."

Maybourne shrugged. "Maybe there is no spy, and I really am just paranoid."

Giving him an "Are you kidding?" look, Hammond grunted. "No. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I can see plausibility to your theory." He shook his head, lowering it close to his chest as he brooded.

"It's the only reason I can see that they discovered Langford's communications bunker. We lost contact with the entire southern coast with her relay system gone."

Hammond thumped a fist to his thigh, puffs of condensation shooting out as he spat out, "No one there would have said anything. Some of those refugees working there hadn't stepped out of her bunker the past two years because they were too scared! Someone from our base, _this_ base must have said something. No one else knew about this base. Only us. That's how we set it up!" Hammond sighed, looking over to Maybourne with tired eyes. "You were right. We probably do have a spy."

Shaking his head, Maybourne murmured, "For years I hoped you'd say I was right. Even back when I said we should try anyway and send a probe through the Stargate using those symbols Doctor O'Neill deciphered, Washington be damned." He rubbed his face tiredly.

"Sirs."

The two generals turned. Hansen was climbing up the ladder to the bridge. She nodded towards the cavern below. "Looks like Doctor Jackson have deciphered the symbols where Machello might have hidden the second tablet."

"Looks like Doctor Jackson is just as resourceful as our Doctor O'Neill, commander." Hammond smiled down at O'Neill and pointed to the sub they were standing on, motioning them to come in.

"I suppose," Hansen murmured. She studied her commanding officers. "Permission to speak frankly, sir?"

Hammond nodded.

"I shouldn't trust them," she said abruptly. Emotionless blue eyes wandered back to Jack and Daniel, narrowing.

Hammond interrupted. "So you're saying you don't believe their story?"

Hansen paused. "I didn't say that either, sirs."

Hammond and Maybourne looked at each other.

"I believe Colonel O'Neill," Hansen reluctantly admitted.

"Oh?" Maybourne drawled. To his surprise, she appeared flustered.

"Yes, sir. I do." Hansen shifted from foot to foot. "In my days at NASA, I went back to fiddling in astrophysics for a while. We toyed with the possibility of the alternate universe theory. I really believed then that it could be possible."

"It has to be possible," Hammond whispered.

"Adjunct Hammond. Adjunct Maybourne." Jolinar's head popped up through the hatchway. Hansen bristled.

"We're in a meeting, Tok'ra!"

Jolinar didn't look offended at the tone. She merely nodded her head. "Colonel O'Neill believes they have the seven symbols. We can leave for this place immediately."

Hansen pursed her lips, darting a look over to the generals before nodding briskly. Jolinar barely climbed down the ladder before Hansen went down as well, brushing past Jacob without a word as she headed straight for her office where they could meet.

General Hammond gazed back at his old friend. Jacob Carter was looking sadly down the hallway where Hansen was. Turning back to the adjunct leader, Jacob smiled sadly.

"My kid can be very stubborn at times, George."

"She's doing good work though," soothed Hammond. "She just has to get used to the

idea, Jacob."

"I've been waiting for her to get used to the idea of me being Tok'ra for the past two years." With that, Jacob followed behind her.

Looking sadly at each other, Hammond and Maybourne shrugged, resigned. Maybourne nodded a greeting to Jolinar, waving to the hallway.

"Ladies, first," he murmured.

Jolinar smiled. "Perhaps my Tok'ra symbiote is male, Adjunct Maybourne?"

Maybourne chuckled. "I see only a lady in front of me, Miss Jolinar." He waved towards the hallway again.

Nodding, Jolinar glided down the hallway.

Watching for a while, Maybourne hesitated before leaning towards his friend, his voice dropping to a whisper.

"Uh...she _is_ female, right?"

Hammond shook his head, exasperated. "I told you. They're genderless, Harry."

Rubbing the back of his neck, the veteran soldier chuckled nervously. "I keep forgetting. Right. No gender." He walked down the hallway, nodding to soldiers as they went by.

General Hammond chuckled, unzipping his coat as it got warmer with each step in the sub. He trailed behind his comrade, lips curving to a smirk. "Getting senile, too, in your old age, Harry?"

"Oh shut up."

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Sitting in the rebels' cramped version of a meeting room, waiting for the others to return,

Daniel tried not to fidget. Daniel brought his fingers up to his mouth and breathed on them, but even his breath felt frosty so he lowered his hands. Knees brushing against the crate they had in the center to serve as a desk, fingers playing with the parka's zipper,

Daniel alternated from stamping his feet to revive them to checking if his fingers still had any feeling in them until Jack's soft growl told him to stop.

Daniel leaned over to where he knew Jack was. "You have all the symbols, right, Jack?"

Jack sighed heavily. "Daniel, you asked me that before, and yes, I wrote the symbols down."

"Exactly the way they were?" he insisted.

Jack snorted through his nose loudly. "No, I wrote them out as Xs and Os! Of course I wrote them out exactly as they were!"

Daniel flushed, one arm wrapped around his middle as he felt his stomach churn. He remembered he hadn't eaten anything. Then again, he wasn't hungry. "Sorry. Just checking."

"Well, check a little more quietly, will you? You're giving me a headache," Jack groused, but he gripped Daniel's knee briefly to show he wasn't angry.

Daniel was tapping his foot, more to distract himself with something from being aware of the tingling sensation of his eyes beneath the blindfold. He could feel them wanting to adjust, to focus, but judging from before, it wasn't a good idea.

"Daniel?" Jack was shaking his shoulder.

Rousing himself, Daniel lifted his heavy head towards Jack.

"You okay? You look ready to drop off." The colonel placed a hand on his back. "We could head back to the room, and I'll deal with them instead."

Shaking his head, Daniel muttered, "Tired, but I'm okay". He got an answering squeeze on his knee from Jack. He heard Jack sitting up as someone approached.

"Gentlemen," a female voice said as footsteps strode in. "May I introduce you to General Hammond and General Maybourne?"

"Maybourne?" Daniel whispered with a bit of dread. He sucked in his breath.

"Doctor Jackson. Colonel," an all too familiar voice greeted them before sitting down in front of them. Trailing behind him, Hammond gave them a quick nod and sat down as well, followed by Hansen, Jolinar and Jacob. Huddled almost together in the small room, crates pushed back against the wall, only chairs set up in a circle around a lone box, they all pinned their eyes on Jack and Daniel, waiting.

Jack sat there, studying the man who was a colonel in his reality, silently noting the tired smile on this man's face.

"I take it we've met...well...you met my double in your dimension?" Maybourne asked in a dry voice.

"Sort of," Jack muttered. "You were in charge of Area 51."

"Same here before I was asked over to their project. Few months before Ra came knocking at our door." Maybourne chuckled. "Don't worry, Colonel. I won't dissect you or anything."

Jack laughed awkwardly. It was too weird. He actually found himself liking this guy while his counterpart back in his reality was more like the world's best model for a dart board. "That's...uh...nice to know."

Hammond coughed, interrupting, giving Jack a quick silent apology before he spoke. "Colonel, we don't mean to push, but—"

"The symbols, I know." Jack waved the pad in his hand. "We've got them."

Hansen snagged it out of his hands much to Jack's irritation. She looked at the haphazard, crooked handwriting with a dubious frown. "Are you sure Machello's tablet will be there?" She lifted her eyes towards Daniel.

"I think so." Shifting in his seat, very aware of the scrutiny, Daniel forced his voice to be calm, strong, despite his own doubts spinning in his mind. "Machello was an enemy of the Goa'uld in our reality as well."

Maybourne sat up, interested. "Was he an ally in your universe?"

Jack looked over to Daniel and hedged, "Not...really."

"We can go over to the address and see for ourselves," Selmac spoke, eyes glowing in Jacob's face.

Hansen gave her father a mild glare. "I would prefer my own people check it out."

"You have to be careful..." Daniel kept fidgeting, hands twisting restlessly on his lap. Voice faint, he waved around the room. "He had many things there...well...at least in our reality, that is."

"Weapons?" Leaning forward, Hansen paid attention with growing interest.

Daniel paused, his mouth twisting in a grimace, half out of memory, half out of pain as his stomach cramped once more. "Some were." Bile rose up his throat as he recalled one innocent looking tablet, imagining those slimy things burrowing into him, breaking his hold on sanity bit by bit with no one knowing the real reason why, only throwing him in the Mental Ward.

Jack jumped in, gaze darting over to his friend with understanding darkening his eyes to black. "In other words, there are some things you _really _don't want to fiddle around with."

"We'll take the chance," Hammond rumbled as he motioned to Jolinar. "We should leave in a half hour. Jolinar, how much time have we left?"

"Four days and ten of your hours," she quoted, noticing Daniel stiffening. "Dan-yel Jackson, is there something wrong?"

"N-nothing. Didn't realize how much time we had left exactly." Swallowing, Daniel turned towards Hansen's voice. "Um...you're Commander Hansen? Is that correct?"

Hansen eyed Daniel up and down. She ignored Jack's glare as she made a quick calculation of his condition. "Yes, I am, Doctor Jackson."

Nodding, a brief smile flitted across Daniel. "Perhaps I should go with your team and help out with—"

Jack's head spun around to his friend. "Daniel."

Shaking his head, knowing Jack would protest, Daniel cut in. "Jack, I'm familiar with the place. It's probably similar with the one we knew. I'll know exactly what to look for."

"No offense, Doctor," Hansen broke in. "But you can't see."

Daniel's shoulders tensed. Jack twisted around and glowered at the commander.

Not bothered by Jack's expression, she went on in a flat voice. "You're not going to be much help to us crashing into things with your sight the way it is. My men would be too busy worrying over you to find what we need."

Jack could see the minute slumping of Daniel's shoulders, and he frowned at Hansen. Female or not, he had half a mind to knock her off that chair. "_I'll_ go."

"That would be useful," Jolinar agreed. "Colonel O'Neill would be a good guide for us. And I would be able to recognize Machello's handiwork to find the tablet itself."

Hansen nodded. "Fine. Kawalsky will accompany you along with Simmons and Jolinar.

We'll get you set up with weaponry."

Pursing his lips, Jack nodded. He wasn't used to people just assigning people to his team. Sure, he could take orders, but he'd never heard them given so...brusquely before. It grated his nerves. "Fine." He glanced over to Daniel.

"He'll be safe here, Colonel."

Jack started and looked back to Hansen. The commander had an odd look on her face as she studied Daniel. When she realized she had been discovered, she coughed loudly.

"Be ready in ten." Hansen rose from her seat abruptly, signaling the meeting was over.

She left, sharply saluting Hammond and Maybourne before leaving the room.

"I hope you're right about this, Colonel," Hammond said quietly. He didn't get up from his seat yet. Maybourne remained where he was as well.

Jack wondered why Daniel wasn't jumping in as usual, stating how they were sure, they'd beat this, blah, blah, blah. It worried the colonel enough to wish he could take Daniel with him, keep him under his watchful eye.

"Hammond." Selmac was back again. "We have much to discuss with you about another issue."

Nodding, the general rose, Maybourne doing the same. The two generals paused at the door though, turning back to Jack and Daniel.

Jack didn't know what to say. He could only nod, hoping his face held every reassurance they were seeking, uncomfortable with the idea that they were possibly putting all their bets on what he found there.

"Hurry back," Hammond murmured, and they were gone.

Jack was left with Daniel and Jolinar.

Not realizing they still had company, Daniel cleared his throat. "Jack, are you sure you don't want me to—"

"Daniel, forget it. Hansen had it right even if she didn't have the grace to put it nicely. You won't be able to do much there. I'll go. I remember that place well enough." Jack remembered the old man telling Daniel to hold on to one end of the body switching machine, and suddenly his archeologist got sucked into another's body. While Jack was stuck in Teal'c's, the experience, while strange, wasn't as painful or long suffering as Jack imagined it must have been for Daniel. Jack felt a bitter taste in his mouth. Jack would have lost a friend before he even knew it was time to say good-bye. Jack growled under his breath.

"Jack?"

"I'll go. You stay." He didn't want Daniel anywhere near that place just in case the

Machello of this reality had one of those machines lying around.

"We will return quickly, Dan-yel Jackson."

Daniel jumped.

The Tok'ra rose, hand on his arm. "I did not mean to intrude. I was waiting to help Colonel O'Neill assist you back to your quarters."

Jack could see Daniel visibly tense. "I don't need help."

Shaking his head, Jack didn't contradict him. He kept his mouth shut, firmly taking Daniel by the arm and lifting him up. Jack could feel the effort Daniel was putting into trying to stand on his own. Alarmed, Jack glanced over to Jolinar.

The Tok'ra had noticed and was pulling out a vial. "Drink this," she instructed, pressing it close to Daniel's lips.

Jerking back, Daniel shook his head. "I don't need—"

"The effects are fading once more. This will make you feel better."

"Feel better," Daniel repeated in a faint voice. He tensed, pulling away further. "No.

I...Jack..." he trailed off helplessly as he felt Jolinar's insistent pushing of the glass container against his mouth.

"No, Daniel. It isn't." Jack knew what it was he feared. He could hear it in Daniel's voice.

"I don't understand though." Daniel was still reluctant. "I thought these things lasted a long time. They did for Doctor O'Neill."

Jolinar pulled the neuar back and nodded. "The _re'klya_ is slowed down by the neuar, yes. But typically, the _re'klya's_ effects on the victim are slow paced in themselves."

Jack frowned, staring at the blue liquid filled vial. "So Dan never needed it?"

"I did not say that." Stepping closer within Daniel's personal space, she took the vial and pulled the tiny cork out. "In time, often in less than one Tau'ri year, the _re'klya_ gradually speeds up and kills its intended victim. The neuar slows it down even further, extending the time before the final stage can occur. When the final stage is reached, there is no hope remaining at all. We don't know how long the neuar can extend the victim's life. It was never tried until Dan O'Neill."

Before Jack could stop her, Jolinar stroked Daniel's cheek, pausing when the man flinched. "You have no devices any more, Dan-yel. Thus, the effects are beyond any pace or time and will flare up for only a short period but can be very uncomfortable." She paused.

"None have survived that I have seen in the mines when the slaves try to pull them out of their loved ones who were punished. Many die within hours after removal. Without the neuar to numb the pain, it is unbearable, and the result is always death anyway. The neuar will ease your discomfort until the last of the aftereffects have passed. You are beyond that danger, Dan-yel Jackson."

Daniel pulled his head back from the vial. All he could think of was that he'd had a few doses already, too many if he thought about it." "Jack?"

"It's okay, Daniel. Go ahead." A firm hand on his back, Daniel felt the vial against his lips. Flushing, he took over, tipping the glass himself and drinking the odd mixture of sour and sweet. He wiped his mouth with a sleeve, reluctantly admitting he did start feeling a little better. He flexed his hands down by his sides, relieved to feel the tendons along the backs of his hands had ceased tightening, moving a bit easier now. He ran his tongue nervously over his lower lip, wishing he could see what this drug was exactly. He didn't like how it made him feel better that quickly. Daniel shakily wiped his mouth with the back of his hand with that thought in mind.

"Come on." Jack said quietly. Again, hand on back, the colonel guided him out of the room.

Daniel couldn't stop himself from sticking a hand out to feel for a surface of some kind, the cold wall greeting his palms with a chill that would have made him pull his hand back if he didn't have the overwhelming feeling he would fall otherwise. He hobbled, hearing soldiers murmuring as they passed by them. He could feel Jolinar walking behind him, Jack to his right. While he was embarrassed that he needed help to walk down a simple hallway, he was oddly reassured by their presence, Jack's especially.

Muttering to himself, Jack was still loud enough for Daniel to hear. "Damn these hallways. I forget these subs are small. Feel like I should lose a hundred pounds to fit in them." Daniel bit back a smile. The colonel was grousing about all this walking back and forth, probably for his benefit mostly, hand still on his back as if to tell him he was still there.

"You are quite different from the John O'Neill I am familiar with," Jolinar commented, stopping Jack's monologue.

"Eh?"

"You are quite vocal."

Jack grunted. "He doesn't talk much, does he?"

"Quite the opposite, Colonel O'Neill. His brother is quite talkative, yet I am not bothered by his dialogue." Jolinar smiled towards Daniel's back. Jack caught it out of the corner of his eye and unknowingly tightened his hand over the slouched shoulders.

Daniel paused, feeling the tension in the curled fingers. "Jack?"

"Nothing." Jack told his hand to relax. This was not Sha're, and even if it were, he was sure Daniel would be able to handle it.

_So why are you glad Jolinar is not staying here with him, huh?_

Jack scowled. He hid this by asking the first question that popped into his head. "So how did you meet me...er...the other me?"

Stopping at their room, Jolinar lowered her voice. "He was ordered to execute my family."

Daniel sucked in his breath. She'd only told him John was an overseer.

"What?"

For some reason, Jack sounded shocked, floored for that matter. Maybe he didn't know. Daniel reached out and found Jack's sleeve.

"He was working in the mines as a sort of...overseer in exchange for making sure his family was protected." Daniel let go of Jack's sleeve, his shoulders bowing as he thought how John must have felt when he realized the bargain was false. "They lied."

Jack stared at Jolinar, at Sha're's face. "He killed your family?" Something sour rose up his throat, tanned faces flashing in front of his eyes, and he had to swallow. "All of them?"

"My host's family?" The Tok'ra opened the door, hesitating over answering. As Daniel and Jack went in, she stood by the bunkbed, waiting for Daniel to be seated. "I was hiding in another miner's body. They were seeking the Tok'ra out. Someone had told them we were there. My comrade was taken, and my old host body was mortally wounded. I fled and found this host in the dunes, waiting her turn to die." She stopped, seeing Jack's stunned expression, puzzled about the extreme reaction. Softly, she went on with a sad expression on her face, brown eyes flashing briefly with a glowing light. "John O'Neill and a few others were ordered to kill them all to ensure no other Tok'ra was hiding or would consider using them as hosts for escape. He killed...her father before he had a change of heart. He concealed her, her brother and her children in order to spare them. But they were discovered anyway. She barely escaped and hid in the pit with the rest of the dead."

"God," Daniel breathed. "And you found her?"

"She was dying and so was my host body. But she was not as gravely wounded. So I offered her a chance for vengeance on the Goa'uld." Jolinar's eyes glowed again. "She took it."

"If she didn't take your offer, you would have died?" Daniel guessed.

"Yes. It is not our way to take a host against their will."

"So you're a good Goa'uld," Jack murmured, mind still spinning over what she said.

"We are not Goa'uld!" Jolinar, to their surprise, spun around angrily at Jack. "We are Tok'ra!"

Stunned, the two men fell into an awkward silence.

Jolinar sighed. "I am sorry. I am often mistaken as one, and it is distressing to be grouped with the same demons."

"Sorry," Daniel murmured. He felt a finger touching his cheek.

"It is not your fault," she whispered before pulling away. "We must go, Colonel O'Neill. They are waiting."

Sure enough, the cavern rumbled as the Stargate activated before the dampeners kicked in, the vibrations shrinking to a barely audible hum.

Jack scowled. " I'm guessing these people don't like to wait."

"They are eager to find Machello's tablet. I will wait for you outside." Jolinar stopped, taking something else out. She took Daniel's hand and dropped something in it.

Recognizing it as neuar, Daniel opened his mouth to protest.

"In case you need more, Dan-yel." With that, she slipped out of the room.

Standing there for a second, Jack shifted from foot to foot. "We should be back soon."

Daniel smiled wryly. "Bring me back a souvenir?"

"Sure," Jack quipped. "I'll bring you back a rock." He paused, waiting, but Daniel didn't jump in to correct him. He cleared his throat. "Daniel?"

"We don't know what's out there," Daniel said softly, fingers curling around the glass vial. "And it might not even be there, Jack—"

"It is. I'll get it, come back, and then we'll head for home for Dan's tablet."

Daniel sighed and fell back against the wall, the top bunk brushing against the top of his head. "I'll be here."

"You'd better." Jack rasped. His chest tightened on the same words, knowing he was about to say the same thing. But it was different here. Daniel wasn't dying. He was alive. History wasn't repeating itself.

"See you," Jack managed and left before the image of Daniel sitting there, blind and weak rattled any more bones inside him. He nearly collided with another soldier, Simmons, who was also on his way to the Stargate. Jack was obviously not the only one late.

Daniel sat there, listening to Jack's fading footsteps. He released the neuar vial from his grip with disgust, hearing it land on the mattress. No matter what they said, he could still feel the lingering tingling in the pit of his stomach, threatening to break out and dose him with a seemingly never ending round of euphoria before the eventual crash to pain and overwhelming longing hunger. Dan needed it because he was ill, and Daniel couldn't help but feel like he was using up the supply that should be his.

Daniel's ears rang from the silence. Without Jack's voice grumbling away, filling the void in the room, the place felt oppressive, smothering, suffocating. The humming of the engines wasn't enough in his opinion, the people walking by the room, the alarms outside ringing, they all sounded muted. The alarms in the SGC could get so loud; Daniel would still hear them even after they were gone.

A muffled sound made him tense. Someone was in there. Daniel sat straighter.

"Hello?" he called and heard a sharp intake of breath. Daniel stiffened, legs drawing up as he felt the presence coming closer. He pressed his back against the wall as he asked warily. "Who's there?"

"Sorry, Doctor O'Neill. I mean, Doctor Jackson," the voice apologized. "I thought the colonel was here."

"Jack? He left already." Daniel strained as he felt the person standing too close to him now, almost hovering. "Can I...help you?"

"You really aren't Doctor O'Neill," the speaker breathed. The voice was raspy, drained of its energy, flat, tired. Daniel frowned. He had heard it before. A thin hand wrapped around his left hand suddenly, pulling it towards the speaker. Daniel jumped. "This is what brought you here? This gold thing?"

Daniel nervously pulled his hand away, wondering why the stranger's touch was making him cringe. He could feel the visitor's trembling vibrating into his own arm. Daniel clasped his left hand close to his chest. "I s-suppose the news must have traveled-"

"Your world..." the newcomer interrupted. "The Goa'uld?"

Daniel shook his head. "Not in my world."

The speaker paused as if listening to the Stargate rumbling in the distance. "You're lucky." He sounded bitter. He pulled away and left.

"Weird," Daniel muttered, wondering why it gave him the creeps. He could still feel the visitor's hot breath over him like a hungry predator. Shaking his head, he eased down, fidgeting uncomfortably as he realized all the people he knew, Jack included, were gone.

Folding his arms under his head, Daniel frowned when he realized the neuar was not nearby. He groaned, disgusted with himself. He must have dropped it after all.

"Great," he muttered. "Waste their supplies, why don't you?"

The Stargate shuddered once, signaling they had left, and Daniel sensed an ominous silence hanging over him. Briefly, he wondered if this was how Dan O'Neill felt lying there in the dark, only hums and vibrations to keep him company.

Shivering but not cold, Daniel mentally counted to himself, waiting for his friend to return.

"One thousand, two one thousand, three..."

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Staring at the Stargate being rotated by hand for the last symbol, Jack winced as he saw the soldiers taking off quickly, ducking their heads, barely avoiding the gush of the wormhole spinning madly after them. Odd black boxes, cables snaking around the chevron brackets were humming, coming online soon after the event horizon settled to a flat surface. Jack couldn't believe he barely felt the vibrating rumble of the Stargate at all.

"Cool," he muttered, eyeing the odd assortment of machinery wrapped around the gate, the brackets and ladders he was accustomed to gone. It was strange to see hardly any technicians crowding around the Stargate with their usual gadgets, waiting on the sidelines to take one more measurement and only a few stray soldiers dressed in different colored parkas and flightsuits with no way of figuring out branch of military or rank. It gave Jack the feeling of not really being on a base. He kept turning his head to look around for some verification of actually standing there but only got a few glimpses of terribly young-faced soldiers pacing the caverns with their assault rifles. He gave the Stargate another wary glance, wishing they had at least some sort of shield. No iris meant every Tom, Dick, and Harry with glowing eyes could come prancing through their gate.

Jack rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing.

Where's a nice trinium shield when you need one? he mentally groused, careful not to speak the words aloud. Last thing he needed was to give Hansen an excuse to bite his ass. Jack patted himself down, feeling oddly underdressed with only the borrowed blue flightsuit on. He rubbed his head ruefully, wishing he at least had some Kevlar or even his cap at least, but it was lost. Jack sighed; maybe he should ask for a helmet like the ones Kawalsky and Jolinar were putting on. He blinked when suddenly he saw a grubby, worn olive backpack shoved in front of him. He looked up.

Commander Hansen stood there, bundled in a red parka, gloved hands extending the pack to him, shaking it impatiently. "There's another bag inside," she said, puffs of cold smoke coming out of her mouth. She nodded towards the active Stargate where Jolinar and Kawalsky were waiting. "Get anything that looks like something we can use. Weapons, more communication globes, tablet readers, anything." Hansen nodded to the rest of the team. "Kawalsky knows what to look for, and the Tok'ra will recognize anything that would just be a waste of space for us."

Jack scowled at the bag in front of him. Before he could bark a reply, Kawalsky was running up and snatching the pack.

"Uh...your back is probably still sore, Colonel. Let me get that."

Kawalsky scrambled away before Hansen could get suspicious. The commander glared at the captain's fast retreating back.

Jack snapped his jaw shut. He felt like a damn grunt again, taking orders from some pot bellied major. He respected her position on the base, but he silently grumbled to himself,

A little civility would have been nice. Hell, even a bit of technobabble from her would be great. Jack suddenly stopped, then shook his head.

I can't believe I just thought that.

"Where's Simmons?" Hansen demanded, scoping out the group and realizing the youngest member was missing.

"Here!" someone called out, racing over to the Stargate. Not even gasping from the run, Simmons' drawn face looked embarrassed. Jack steeled himself, waiting for Hansen to explode again.

"You're late," she said gruffly, and Jack blinked.

Flustered, Simmons looked like he was holding back a grin. "Sorry, ma'am, I mean, sir."

Kawalsky groaned softly in the background. "Give me a break..." He darted a look at Jack who made his way over to them. "Kid can sometimes be loopier than a box of Fruit Loops."

"Kinda hyper, isn't he?" Jack drawled as Simmons hurried over to them with a wan, apologetic smile. Jack wiggled his fingers at him and smirked. "The one in my reality was kinda shy."

"He can be quite vocal at times," Jolinar commented, giving the young soldier a gracious nod of her head. "But he is the best communications expert this base has. He encodes all our messages using Doctor O'Neill's encryption and knows how to avoid detection from the Goa'uld when sending them. Everything we transmit goes through him."

"Are we ready?" Simmons was practically bouncing on his heels.

Jack bit back a smile. The kid looked like Daniel in a room full of dusty rocks. He noted any nervousness the soldier had displayed before when he'd encountered him in the communications room and back at Daniel's borrowed quarters was gone. Even the longer length than usual military cut, the hair wildly out in all directions, seem to vibrate with his energy.

"We're ready, commander," Kawalsky called.

Sobering, Jack stared at the submarine behind Hansen, knowing which one Daniel was in. Now he knew how his counterpart felt about leaving his brother. Something about going through the Stargate without him or any of the usual members of his team just didn't feel right.

"Colonel?" Hansen stood there, wondering why he wasn't leaving yet. She followed where his eyes were and pursed her lips.

"Keep an eye on him, will you?" Jack murmured. "Guy can get into trouble exiting a phone booth."

Scowling, Hansen grunted. "I'm a soldier, Colonel. Not a babysitter. He's a grown man and can take care of himself. I can't spare the resources to cater to just one person who's not even part of my outfit."

"Why you—"

"We're going, Commander!" Kawalsky interjected, grabbing Jack by the arm and hauling him towards the Stargate before the colonel could finish.

"Kawalsky! I ain't a sack of potatoes! Let go!"

Whispering hurriedly, Kawalsky released Jack's arm as they followed behind Jolinar and Simmons, who entered the Stargate without hesitation. "The commander will look after him. She may say one thing, but she's got a soft heart." At Jack's disbelieving gawk, he reiterated, "Somewhere."

Before Jack could say anything, he was through the Stargate's event horizon, and any words he wanted to say got swallowed up as he was swept away.

Staring at the Stargate, Hansen glanced over to a soldier with a radio on. After a few minutes, he called out that they were getting an audio confirmation from the team, signaling they were okay. She nodded and took a step back out of habit. It was unnecessary, though. The Stargate blinked out of existence, its wormhole flashing then gone.

"What are you thinking?" Maybourne's boots crunched on the snow behind her. He zipped up his jacket, breathing into his cupped hands.

Turning around, she shrugged at her commanding officer. "Wondering what they'll find."

A dark eyebrow quirking upward, Maybourne grunted. "So...you gonna check up on Doctor Jackson?"

Hansen barely controlled the glare she gave her CO. Ever mindful of rank and such, she only turned back towards the Stargate and the ice peeking through its empty portal. "He'll be fine by himself, sir."

"Gee. I guess I'm the only one spooked by how much he looks like our Doctor O'Neill then," drawled the general. "Can't help but wonder if he's anything like Dan O'Neill at all." He tried not to smile as he spied Hansen eyeing the sub once more. He saw her turn on her heels, stalking over to the sub. "Where are you going?" he asked in an innocent voice.

"Make sure he doesn't go wandering around. Last thing I need is for him to wreck our stuff," Hansen muttered as she went.

"That's a good idea, Commander. Wouldn't want that to happen!" Maybourne called out, schooling his face to a nonchalant expression as she glared back over her shoulder.

Rolling her eyes, she pushed on.

Maybourne smirked. He shook his head. He'd caught what the colonel had asked for and winced inwardly, remembering her response. But looking at her departing back as she climbed the ladder to enter the sub, he chuckled softly to himself.

"Sammy, you softie, you," he murmured and faced the idle Stargate. Soberly, he stood there, watching the ice carved into rivets from numerous openings from a spinning column going back to eat all matter before stilling to a pool of light. Staring at the silent towering artifact, the general sighed, remaining where he was, waiting for the team to return soon and safely. He tsked to himself, realizing he had decided on this at the spur of the moment. He had intended to go check on their supplies instead. But now, he felt like a father waiting for his kids to come home after their first night driving his car.

"Harry, you old coot. You're getting soft, too."

Shaking his head this time at himself, Maybourne rolled his shoulders and waited.


	28. Chapter 27

Author's Note: Still formatting…still slow…very sorry, guys.

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**CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN**

"Do you need rest?"

Teal'c's deep voice boomed from the other side of the office.

"No." Dan sighed, sitting back on the chair. The padding of the seat felt like rock, hard and uncomfortable against his aching body. "Just can't figure this out." He waved at the tablet before him. "I finally got the text before the code translated, but it just doesn't make sense."

"Does it tell of the second device?"

"No, but it tells of a key we still need." Dan thumped the table, mugs and pens rattling in his wake. "But what the hell does 'they carrying God's blessing will open the path by their hand' mean? Does he mean the Goa'uld larva they have inside? A device needed to bring over to get inside Ra's maze and past his shields? What?" He dropped his pounding head in his hands. "I can't figure it out."

"Perhaps some assistance from the staff?" Teal'c suggested.

Dan snorted. "The only guy who could ever put up with me was my research assistant Robert Rothman. Fat chance of getting him—"

"He is here."

"Huh?" Dan lifted his head.

"Doctor Rothman is also involved with this base." Teal'c paused. "Daniel Jackson recommended him."

A sad smile quirked Dan's lips. "I don't even know if Robert's alive in my world. Last I heard, he was heading over to Egypt before I joined the project." Dan felt his shoulders slump, too heavy to keep upright. "He's probably dead."

"Perhaps he is not."

"Not likely," Dan grunted, hand brushing against the tablet once more, trying to figure out the strange symbols' meaning. "The Goa'uld can be very relentless and stubborn."

Teal'c tilted his head, puzzling over the defeated tone.

"I have often found the Tau'ri...were a most stubborn race as well."

Dan made no comment as he listlessly poked the tablet. Finally, he let out a sigh. "I suppose two heads are better than one. Maybe he can make more sense of it with his eyes than I can."

"Shall I request his presence, Dan O'Neill?" Teal'c asked.

"Sure," Dan muttered in a tired voice. "Request away." He pulled back from the tablet, listening as Teal'c spoke into a phone, asking for Rothman. Dan shook his head. Rothman in a top secret project? He couldn't believe it. Hell, he was still reeling over how different everything felt here. Daniel's computer humming in the background sounded like the submarine during those rare quiet and uneventful nights. And the books he asked Doctor Fraiser to read out loud to him on the shelves Daniel had stored in his office, some volumes he had as well, others he knew he'd never found. Comparing the list of what his parents owned that he'd committed to memory, he knew neither of them ever had a complete set, some lost to them in both realities due to the same woman.

_Lily_, he thought with a scowl.

"He will be coming soon," Teal'c announced as he hung up the phone.

Dan didn't bother to try and smile. He was too tired to be happy with every goddamn thing everyone was offering to do for him. Smiling was beginning to hurt, to strain his concentration. "Swell," he only muttered.

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She'd been so sure this would work.

Grabbing one of the canteens piled next to the MALP probe sitting idly beside the DHD, Sam sat on the floor, inches away from the platform and glared at the mirrored wall.

They had everything perfectly timed, to the exact moment the staff weapon blast scored past Daniel and struck the wall, shrieking across to the other reality like it did for them. She had it down to the second, everything written down neatly in a clipboard, timed with four clocks. Even the energy signature the wall was emitting was the same. She timed it, waited for it to level off to the last decimal point. All the conditions were there. She couldn't have controlled it better if she were in some lab back home.

So why wasn't it working?

"Want?" John extended a cellophane wrapped ration towards her.

Sam shook her head silently and watched him hunch down next to her, absently touching his bandaged shoulder briefly with a grimace. She observed him playing with the crinkly wrapping around the ration and sympathized. "Not hungry?"

"Not for this stuff." John stuck it back in his pack and sat there, gazing at the wall. She could see his brooding expression in the mirror. "So, mind telling me what's going on?"

"Excuse me?"

John waved angrily at the wall. "We've been at it again for the past two hours, and all we've got are more numbers for your damn computer notebook."

Swallowing, Carter's eyes wandered back to the portal. "I can't understand it myself," she admitted. "It should work."

"Should?"

Sam opened her mouth to explain when John cut her off.

"Please, spare me the mumbo jumbo. Just tell me this. Can we get them back?"

She sobered and stared at the canteen in her hands. "Even if we find a way back to your reality, Captain, the chances of finding them are slim." Carter took a sip of water. She jutted her chin. "But we will find them."

John turned towards the wall in front of him. "Just how much time you think your government will give you before they finally say enough is enough?"

Sam stopped. It was a possibility she'd thought of but pushed to the back of her mind. "I know our time isn't limitless." She kicked her boot against the stone floor, dully noting it barely scratched the surface. "But we've come up against similar odds before." She smiled wanly. "Trust me, I'm usually the first one to point out to the colonel the odds and how they're against us."

John grunted. "Bet he appreciates that."

Chuckling softly, she nodded. Sam raised her head and looked directly at John. "We always find a way out of it. Somehow."

John gazed steadily back at her, noting the determined glint again in her eyes, and he smiled tightly. He felt a little glimmer of hope flare inside, a feeling he hadn't had in a long time. He turned towards the front, eyeing the scattered statues all around, reminding him of corpses. His stomach churned at the image, and his eyes snapped to his own reflection on the wall.

"Can I ask you a question?" Carter spoke in a soft voice.

"Shoot."

"Why did you do it?"

John turned his head back to her, eyebrow rising inquisitively.

"Drug your brother."

The eyebrow quickly went down and knitted together with the other one as he frowned. "I'm trying to help him."

"By lying to him and sedating him?" Sam nodded behind her shoulder at their Stargate. "I don't see how—"

"Are you friends with Daniel? Good friends?" John interrupted.

Sam blinked in surprise. "I like to think so."

"Wouldn't you do the same to protect him if it were for the best?"

"Not if it made him hate me for the rest of his life."

John's eyes darkened. "Better hate than dead."

Sam shook her head. "Hate can be very tiring."

Brown eyes swept over her thoughtful expression. "You sound like you speak from experience," John noted.

She shrugged.

"Your dad?"

Startled, she swiveled around to stare at him.

John shrugged. "Met your dad before. Nice guy. Although my commander sometimes acts like it's otherwise."

"Is he..." Sam trailed off, unsure how to ask. She moistened her lips and tried again. "Is he alive there?"

"Yeah...you can say that."

Something about John's tone caught her attention. Reading the uncomfortable shift in his seat, a posture she found odd in a man who looked like her CO, Sam knew.

"He's Tok'ra, isn't he?"

Now it was John's turn to be startled. He jerked back in surprise, glancing at her with wide brown eyes before finally, reluctantly, nodding.

Sam didn't know how to feel. "Oh," she just said and went back to taking another sip of water from her canteen.

"You don't sound very upset."

Shrugging again, Sam checked her watch. Sitting here only made her more tense rather than relaxed. "Technically, he's my counterpart's father, not mine." She paused, her voice lowering. "And my father is a Tok'ra here as well."

John sucked in his breath sharply. "Damn. Sorry."

"Don't be." She smiled sadly down at the stone floor again, seeing her dim reflection in its smooth surface. She looked as tired as she felt. "My dad had terminal cancer. They gave him the choice to be a Tok'ra liaison for our planet and their people or die."

"Dan once told me that Jacob was dying somewhere during a failed mission. They were ambushed. Simply too many of them to too few of us." John tilted his head back and mused out loud. "Jacob was dying, and he was offered a chance to live. He took it."

Coughing awkwardly, he stared at the portal wall for a long moment as if thinking about whether he should ask his next question. He shrugged, tiredly massaging the back of his neck with one hand before he spoke again. "Back on Earth, your guys had mentioned the ribbon device, and they said you used it. Uh...I thought only those with a Goa'uld or Tok'ra could use them—"

"I had a Tok'ra inside me once." Sam inwardly winced. There, she said it. Even now, after all this time, the idea was still a bit uncomfortable for her. She covered her reaction by tipping her canteen back for a long drink. "But she died."

"She?"

Sam lowered her container and slowly nodded. She could still hear the whisper of the Tok'ra as she apologized for endangering her, then slipping away to give her back her life. Sam gazed at the bracelet she had on her wrist, wondering briefly where Jolinar was in their reality. "Her name...well...I guess she is more of an it, but she said her name was Jolinar."

"Shit," John breathed. Sam turned to look at him. "Jolinar? Of Malk-shur?" At Sam's startled nod, John rubbed his jaw with a hand before darting another look over to her. "She's our spy in Jermak's ship!"

"Jermak?"

"The general in charge of good ole Tau'ri. He and Seth watch over our planet. Seth is usually planetside, and Jermak plays wannabe god up in space." John massaged small circles around his temples. "Jesus...she's dead in your reality? Who supplies you information then? Are you even allies with the Tok'ra?"

"We are, but we don't have spies supplying us with intelligence. They let us know if something important comes up." Sam shrugged, tilting her canteen back once more to her lips.

"So you don't have a permanent liaison on your base?"

Stunned, Sam nearly choked on her water. Sputtering, she wiped her mouth hastily with her sleeve. "You do?"

"Jacob is our go-between. He's usually with our adjunct leaders, but lately he pops into the Beta base to say hi." John shook his head. "Weird. I never thought I would work with anyone with a Goa'uld inside them."

"They're Tok'ra," she corrected him.

John gave her a funny look. "Yeah...that's what they keep on insisting, too." He unscrewed the top off his canteen and took a long guzzle. Mildly surprised at the taste, he stared at the container for a moment before taking another sip. He fiddled with the cap as he continued. "But I really can't see our base surviving without one of them there."

"They help with the transmissions?"

John nodded. "They got those globe things." He raised his hands and curled them into the outline of a baseball. "To communicate. We don't have a lot of those around. We try to grab as many as we can find, but they're usually in the hands of a high-ranking Goa'uld, and you can't get them from them unless they're dead."

Sam tentatively spoke up again. "Janet told me your brother mentioned you think you can find a cure for his condition."

"His condition?" John repeated in a bitter voice. "Yeah, you could call it that. If they can put those things in him, they can take them out."

"But after three years?" she pointed out.

John glowered at the major.

Sam didn't flinch or turn away. "What if you don't find a cure?"

"I will." John's voice brooked no arguments.

"But—"

"Look, I think we've rested enough, don't you?" Standing abruptly, John turned to face the wall, glaring at it as if it was Ra himself.

Sam looked up at his grim face and nodded. "Might as well." She rose, nearly stumbling as the building rumbled. The major frowned at the ceiling above. "Damn. I was hoping for a reprieve of the quakes for a while. I guess they've started again."

"Major Carter!" Ferretti called out, hand clapped over his cap as he staggered to where they were sitting. He pointed worriedly at the ceiling. "Should we continue?"

The building rumbled once more, daring them to try.

"I don't think we have much of a choice. But we should send some of the archeologist team back to be on the safe side," she said, noting John's relieved expression at her words. "Get into positions." She gave John what she hoped was an encouraging smile. "Here we go again, Captain."

John grunted, giving her one last heated look and stalked off. Her smile faded, and mentally she sighed.

_Any time now, sir. I would appreciate you popping back. Right now would be good_. She glanced at the wall, seeing only her own face staring back at her. Standing straighter, she walked to where her equipment was.

"Okay guys, from the beginning."

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_Damn_, Jack thought. _Talk about déjà vu._

Staring at the red veils hanging on the walls like shrouds and the endless granite stone surrounding them, Jack couldn't help but feel like he was taken back in time to that damn planet again. He discreetly glanced to his left and right to see if his usual team was there, but instead, he saw Kawalsky and Jolinar standing around staring at the complicated metal webbing hanging from the ceiling. Simmons was off God knows where.

"Who was his decorator?" Kawalsky muttered, lowering his rifle after Jolinar called out it was all clear. He tipped his helmet back as he swept his flashlight left and right, studying the large tarps covering the angular shapes scattered about. The captain frowned as he spied Simmons walking around the room, seemingly touching everything in sight, tugging loose a corner here and there. "Graham, would you stop that? We've got to do this systematically. We're not ransacking the place."

That drew Jack's attention. "We're not?" he asked dryly, nodding towards the knapsack Kawalsky had slung over his shoulder.

The captain shrugged. "So we take a few things. We need them." He whistled sharply to Jolinar and tossed the knapsack to the Tok'ra woman who caught it easily. "See anything that looks like it, Jol?"

"No." She eyed the lieutenant still exploring the chamber. "Perhaps you should wait. We can divide up the area for faster results."

Jack circled around the DHD in the center of the chamber, practically remembering the layout by heart. He eyed the far end of the room and saw the lighted entryway to the stasis chamber.

"Recognize anything?" Kawalsky asked Jack as he kept an eye on Simmons with a frown. The young soldier kept his hands off, but he kept looking about, swiveling his head, eyes darting left and right as if searching. "Compared to the place in your reality, I mean."

Jack observed the walls and red fabric decorating the surfaces. He grimaced. "Everything looks the same. Doesn't seem like anything's different. Over there," Jack pointed to a spot behind Jolinar's left, "was where Machello came out from."

The Tok'ra and Simmons spun around to the indicated spot as if expecting the old man to hobble from behind the curtains.

"Well...almost the same," Jack amended with a sheepish grin. He sobered as he stared at the silent Stargate. "He wasn't our ally though."

"Machello?" Jolinar asked with surprise.

"He took one of my team members hostage." Grimacing, Jack mentally shrugged to himself. "He left us a bunch of codes too which Carter...er...Major Carter in my reality," he corrected himself at Kawalsky's startled expression, "told me was similar to the stuff your Dan O'Neill has on his tablet."

"So the second half may be here," Jolinar guessed. She turned, scanning the place. Jolinar took off her helmet and tucked it under her left arm. She tilted her head, dark brunette hair streaming down to conceal half her face as she observed one particular cloth covered shape. "Kawalsky, what do you suppose this is?" she asked, giving it a poke.

The captain went over and peered under the cover. He grunted. "Beats the hell out of me. Colonel, you seen anything like this?"

Jolinar peeled back the tarp, revealing a large device with two sides of handles.

"Don't touch that!" Jack barked abruptly. Startled, the Tok'ra jerked her hand back, her helmet tumbling out of her other arm and landing loudly on the floor. She turned towards Jack with an arched eyebrow. Kawalsky backpedaled a bit before stopping. He gawked at Jack, wondering what was up.

Jack waved his hand at the object with a snarl. "Trust me. You really, _really_, don't want to touch that! Not unless you want to be in someone else's shoes. Literally!"

_"Okay," Jack gritted. "You go take that end. I'll take this side." He glanced at his watch, wondering how Daniel was doing. He made a face. Their friend was trapped in a dying man's body. How did he think Daniel was doing? _

_"Teal'c? Ready?"_

_The Jaffa nodded and placed his hands inches away from the double handles. "I am, O'Neill."_

_"Okay. On the count of three then." Jack set his hands in position as well. _

_"One...two...three..." Jack brought his hands down the same time as Teal'c did._

_Lightning ran through his arms, down his back, and Jack found himself dropping to the floor. It was an odd sensation, falling, yet feeling himself being pulled as well like in a cosmic tug of war. He heard himself cry out in surprise, his voice sounding odd and deep before he slammed to the floor and blacked out._

_Seconds later, he hears himself talking. He frowned. Funny, he didn't feel his mouth moving._

_"O'Neill. O'Neill. Are you well?" Jack heard himself saying._

_Wait a minute._

_O'Neill?_

_Jack cautiously opened his eyes a crack, and they widened further when he saw himself kneeling over him, shaking his shoulder, his gas mask off to reveal his own brown eyes filled with concern. Jack opened his mouth and gurgled out a "What?" before he realized his voice had changed to a deeper tone. He sat up, still staring at himself leaning back to give him room. _

_Wait. If he's over there, then he's..._

_Jack lifted his hands and saw how dark they were, how much larger they were now. He gawked at the man across from him, Colonel Jack O'Neill, wearing a very Teal'c-like expression of worry with the telltale eyebrow raised high._

_Jack opened his mouth again, at himself, but couldn't think of anything to say but "Ah crap."_

Jack waved at the familiar device again with a pained expression, brow furrowed. "Just back away from it, okay?"

Kawalsky and Jolinar gave each other a funny look. The captain shrugged and took another step back, the Tok'ra doing the same.

"So where do we look, then?" Kawalsky pointed out, glancing back at Simmons, who was staring at the tarp covered device with curiosity.

Jack gave the machine peeking out from under the cover a funny face and muttered, "Anywhere but there." He motioned them towards the rest of the room and began his own search in one corner of the room, staying as far away from that thing as possible.

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_"Hey, anyone in here?" A quick rap on the outside glass door to announce his arrival, John poked his head in. Dan could see him from his angle behind the shelves, between the books. He was about to call out his location when he heard his assistant sniff._

_"Oh...it's you..." Rothman gave another sniff, nasal drip obviously not working today. "Doctor O'Neill is in the stacks right now in the shared alcove next door. He'll be with you in a moment."_

_Dan heard, rather than saw John give Rothman a resounding pat on the back. He cringed when he heard Robert drop whatever it was he was cleaning for the other professors. "How's it going? Saaay, is that a beard I see you trying to grow there, Rockman?"_

_"That's Rothman, Mister O'Neill. R...O...T...H Roth."_

_Wincing, Dan tried not to snicker. Robert was a nice research assistant and all, tending to agree with most of his theories, but as John had often said he "needed to dig up some manners". _

_Then again, Robert was always very easygoing, if not a bit shy. For some reason, John brought out the dark side in his assistant._

_John poked his head into the alcove and glared at him. "There you are. We're supposed to pick up Mom and Dad from the airport in a little over an hour. Will you get down from there already? Your geeky aide is trying to bore me to death with that rock of his on the table!"_

_The one thing John always seemed to forget was Robert had quite excellent hearing. _

_"Mister O'Neill, I will have you know this is a perfect specimen of a head bust from the temple of—"_

_John gave Dan a desperate plea with his eyes, mouthing "Save me" as he faked a gag, one hand wrapped around his own throat, rolling his eyes and pretending to pass out._

_Dan clamped his mouth with his hand, shaking his head, trying not to laugh. The last thing he needed was to lose the one assistant who could immediately pick up on what he needed before he could finish mumbling out the quoted reference. No, he didn't need to break in another aide. _

_"Just sit outside. I'm almost done," Dan whispered, hearing Rothman outside grumbling. _

_John looked aghast. "But...but..."_

_Dan clapped a palm down on top of John's cap, an easy thing to do from the ladder he was standing on. With a quick shove, he pushed his brother out with a hissed "Go!" He leaned towards the door dividing the alcove to his office and listened with a growing grin._

_His brother could be heard shuffling outside. He coughed awkwardly. "So...whatcha doing?"_

_"Oh...bad move, bro," Dan murmured with a smirk as he leaned closer to the door with interest._

_"It's interesting you should ask." Rothman could be heard sitting up higher in his seat, a clear sign he was getting into his own lecture mode. While John had reluctantly admitted Dan's own lectures he sometimes dropped by to listen to weren't bad, Robert's tended to be long and tedious, saturated with detail._

_"And with the possibility of this being similar to the classic styles of the carvings in the columns of Petra, which by the way is another fascinating—"_

_Yup. Dan snickered, eyeing his shelves, wondering how long he could take before John suspects this was a trick._

"No, no," Daniel Jackson's Rothman said. "I think you're mistaken." He tapped the tablet on the desk with his magnifying glass.

Dan bristled. Despite how carefully the other archeologist was phrasing it, he felt his temper rise no matter how hard he tried to remain calm. "And I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you, Doctor Rothman."

"I can see how you may have been mistaken with this word here as 'carry'. Common mistake, but I really think—"

"Of course this word means carry!" Dan waved his hands, frustrated. Where did this base get their people? More and more, he felt his chest burn, his heated emotion riding along beside it. "If you see how this part is read, this word could only be translated as—" He fumbled around for the tablet, clumsily trying to feel for the symbol he was referring to. He banged his fist on the table. "Damn it!"

Suddenly, a large arm brushed by his shoulder, and Dan felt the tablet placed in his hands.

"Perhaps it is the next set, Dan O'Neill," Teal'c boomed over his head.

Dan nodded wearily. Of course it was. They hadn't been talking about that set before, and he had scrolled the tablet's text to the previous section. What the hell was he doing?

_Calm down. Now is not the time to lose control. Calm down._

Taking a deep breath, resisting the urge to cough, Dan brushed against the raised text. He frowned to himself when the definitions didn't come up as quickly as before. Dan muttered a prayer to himself, forcing himself to focus, to concentrate, damn it! He clutched the tablet tighter in one hand and tried again.

"There," Dan said hoarsely. _Thank God._ "This symbol. It reads carry."

"May I?" Rothman asked softly.

Mutely, Dan passed the tablet over.

"I was Doctor Jackson's assistant in 1991 to 92." Rothman scratched his beard absently. "I think in...um...92, I think...he was at Lesbos observing the reenactment of the bull sacrifices in Mount Tavros." The scientist paused, unsure of continuing. "Um...I don't know much about this alternate reality thing Mister Teal'c explained to me, but I'm sure you've probably heard this all before."

"I wasn't anywhere near the Aegean Sea at that time," Dan cut in, flatly. "I was in Iraq." _In Iraq getting my fingers broken one by one by Hassef who had John in prison._ He absently rubbed his hands together, still able to hear his own knuckles pop as that bastard—He gave himself a mental shake. "What did he find?"

"He accidentally stumbled upon...er...literally in fact...there was an ancient coverstone over this grove on the mountaintop, and the past rains had washed a good part of the topsoil away. He came across an urn which had some scrolls inside. Bad condition. Quite a shame, if you ask me—"

"Doctor Rothman," Dan said exasperated. Now he knew how John felt dealing with his former assistant.

"Well, they were talking about an animal sacrifice there, too. The animal, as it was pulled up to the temple that used to stand on Mount Tavros, was...now how did that text go? Uh...I think it went...bound by rope and dragged to its feet, the gift to the gods wore a garland of their flowers around its neck."

"Wore around its neck..." Dan murmured.

"Yes. Daniel was quite positive that's what it meant. It was an offshoot of the ancient Greek texts, and it was used twice in two different areas. Once without a following reference to a physical body part doing the action, the other referring to a vessel rather than a person doing the carrying, which meant it was carrying. He argued with the department, I recall, very big fit over the school in fact about how the word could have two meanings. The head of the archeology department wouldn't hear of it." Rothman paused, realizing he was saying too much. "I really think in this case, if he was referring to a person, he wouldn't be saying 'carry', but rather 'wore'."

_They carry God's blessing will open the path by their hand._

"Oh God..." Dan felt his heart hammering fast.

How could he have missed it?

"Doctor O'Neill?" Rothman asked worriedly, seeing the scientist shake visibly.

"If not carry, then worn...around the neck...to open the door with their hand...a key...something small...worn around their necks...oh God...Stupid. How could I have been so _stupid_?" Dan forgot for a moment and nearly fell off his seat as he tried to stand.

"Doctor O'Neill!" Rothman yelped as he tried to catch Dan. Teal'c grabbed Dan by the arm, but he still fell to his knees.

Teal'c glanced over to Rothman, silently disapproving the scientist gawking at Dan, rooted to the spot. He decided Rothman would do more good fetching the doctor instead. "Please request Doctor Frasier to come."

Rothman snapped his mouth shut and blinked before he rose to do so. Dan's weak voice stopped him.

"Wait, you have to get General Hammond." Dan clawed his way up Teal'c's arm to rise. He swayed on his feet. "The text...worn around the neck. That would be a necklace, maybe _her_ necklace. He's right. I didn't have the text translated right. It was worn, but it won't do us any good. We don't have it any more. We can't get in." He stumbled until Teal'c caught him. Dan turned, facing the Jaffa. "We can't get in, Teal'c. Don't you see? We can't get in!" He gave a half sob as he doubled over. "The necklace...it was the key."

"Then we shall get it." Teal'c sounded so sure.

Dan gave a hysterical laugh. "But we can't! Don't you see? We don't have it. She did, and now it's gone. We can't get in."

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_"He should be fine now," the medic announced, getting up. James showed the syringe in his hand as he capped it again and tucked it back in his black, worn medical bag. He gave Dan a quick glance, nodding to himself when the young man sighed, drifting into a semi state of sleep, the whites of his eyes peering through half slit lids. "Gave him a mild dose of sedatives. This should keep him relaxed for now."_

_Head tilting to the side, she absently scratched the scar under her cheekbone, feeling the indent. She could trace where the fork had slashed upward; only a quick whipping back of her head had prevented her eye being gouged out by her own husband._

_"N-no..." Dan's head thrashed left and right, moaning, brow furrowing in pain._

_Frowning, Sammy realized the sedatives weren't enough. She walked over to check his pulse, wondering if she should tell James to get his butt back in here. The moment she touched his wrist, Dan attacked._

_"No! Don't touch me!" Sitting up with a start, Dan flung his hands out in panic. Eyes wide and unseeing, he didn't realize he'd missed as Sammy deftly avoided his swing, sidestepped its arc and dropped down on the bunk beside him, grabbing his wrists neatly in her fist. He only knew there was someone there. "No! No more!"_

_She felt a chill coursing down her spine with those words. She held his hands together with her right hand, finding herself oddly disturbed she was able to do so easily. Dan could have been stronger once, but now he barely managed to keep his head upright, tugging weakly at his captured hands, growling for release._

_"No m-more..." he whispered, head slumping forward in defeat. "P-please...leave me alone...l-let me d-die..."_

_Sammy closed her eyes. Jonas had never said those words. He barely said anything intelligible to her when they found him. But she could hear his voice in her head, begging the same things from her._

_Her left hand flexed. It would be just as easy to reach over to her own holster and..._

_Dan moaned, head lolling back to reveal tears clinging to his lashes, eyes partly opened to whites, lines around his eyes and mouth drawn in pain. "J-john...where are you...want...want to go h-home...h-help me..." He shivered, caught between dream and reality, his forehead brushing against her thigh as he slumped further._

_Staring at the top of his head, she hesitantly reached out and touched the damp locks of hair, jerking her hand back when he shifted. _

_"J-john?" Dan moaned softly, stilling at the touch of her hand. His head fell completely on her lap, curled there in the bed, hands caught in her grasp. She swallowed. She'd never met him before the invasion, but from what Captain Kawalsky had told her, the young man was very independent. He was a man proud of his accomplishments, a man of good humor and guts. _

_Again, the Goa'ulds took something precious. She could see that, even if she'd never met Dan O'Neill until John carried his brother to their base, asking for help in exchange for his._

_"J-john?" Dan was still calling for his brother, not remembering he'd left two days ago back to the mines, to do their dirty work in gathering information behind enemy lines, a reluctant exchange to secure a place for Dan. "J-john?" He began to shake, probably thinking he was with the enemy instead. Dan feebly tried to pull his hands away from her grip, failing again. _

_"Sh..." She boldly reached out and brushed back the hair from his face. She felt his head still on her lap, hands freezing. He sucked in his breath. _

_"J-john?"_

_Sammy deepened her voice, wondering if it would be enough. "Here."_

_Sighing out of relief, Dan's hands went limp. When she released them, they fell to the bed like dead weights. She stroked his fever-dampened hair, like she did for Jonas, and Dan sighed again, leaning towards her hand._

_"B-bad dream...t-thought was...was b-back there..." Dan shivered._

_She didn't even need to ask where he was referring to. She kept stroking his hair, marveling how he seemed to relax further, better than any sedatives they ever gave him. "It was only a dream," she said hoarsely, forcing her voice to deepen some more, her throat throbbing from the effort._

_"Everything's a bad dream," Dan breathed out softly, hissing in pain, his arm curling around his middle. "H-hurts..." He whimpered low, swallowing the rest of it. He tried to sit up, gasping as his strength failed him._

_Hansen didn't even need to strain herself to hold him down. He easily fell back on her lap, back curled away from her, legs twitching as the next set of convulsions set in._

_"G-god..." he whimpered. "When will this be over?"_

_Soon, she thought, wondering how long their supplies could actually last him before he finally succumbed. She found it ironic how everyone had thought it a miracle he was still alive, coherent enough to even suggest helping them out during lucid moments. Yet here was their supposed miracle, wishing it was over, wishing he were dead. _

_Suddenly, she found her eyes moist with tears. Angrily, she yanked her hand away from his hair and gave an angry swipe across her eyes. She couldn't do this. She had over two hundred people in this cave to worry about. She wasn't going to commiserate over a dying man who might not even last longer than a month._

Standing next to the door, Hansen crossed her arms, pursing her lips as she thought it over.

What the hell was she standing here for?

Scowling at the curious glances her men were giving her as they walked by, Hansen backed away from the wall she was leaning on, turning around to glare at the shut door.

Daniel Jackson was behind that door. Not Dan.

It suddenly occurred to her, she'd never asked how Dan was doing in their reality, but judging the concern Kawalsky was displaying, anxious to get going, it didn't look too good.

Her frown deepened. She'd seen how Jackson was doing before, and while he didn't look well, it was nothing compared to what she'd witnessed during Dan's stay. Jackson had only a brief taste of what that alien garbage could do. He had no idea...

Scowling at the sandwich in her hands, Sammy wondered why Ferretti didn't come down to the labs himself to give the meal to Dan. Hadn't she better things to do than play lunch lady?

Nodding briskly as soldiers saluted her walking by, she tried to look dignified carrying the sandwich in her hands, the paper cup of milk in the other. She made sure she didn't spill it. God knew when they'd get any more in.

_Having been there for three months so far, Dan left an obvious trail for everyone to know where he was. All she needed to do was follow the very loud cursing echoing into the hallways._

_She grimaced at a few of the choice words, the sound of pottery being smashed, and knew Doctor O'Neill was probably having problems with the last tape of transmissions Langford dropped off._

_Reaching the office, she rapped on the door, not wanting to startle him. The last soldier forgot. The idiot came up to Dan and clapped him on the shoulder. Dan jumped with such a start, freaking into a full-blown panic attack. Needless to say, she made it very clear only a few people would be delivering Dan's food, making sure they remembered to knock first before entering._

_"Go away..." Dan's weary voice drifted out of the door at her knock._

_"Dinner," she told him, not waiting for the invitation to come in. Weaving around the clutter of books and radio transmitters, she set the sandwich down in front of him. "It's ten o'clock to you, Doctor O'Neill."_

_"Sammy?" Dan sounded surprised to hear her. "Why are you here?"_

_Coughing awkwardly, Hansen pushed the plate closer. "Ferretti had to help Siler with the Stargate. Damn thing is drawing too much juice from those new engines."_

_"Yeah...well...Machello didn't exactly leave a manual..." Dan said weakly, sniffling, wiping a hand across his nose._

_"I'm glad they work at least. They save the abuse on our sub engines to..." Sammy trailed off as she saw the sleeve Dan had used to wipe his nose. The gray sleeve of his sweats was streaked with blood. "Dan..."_

_Surprised she was using his first name, Dan lifted his head. "What?" _

_Staring at the trail of blood, her eyes wandered up to his face, stiffening when she saw a twin trickle coming down his left nostril. She swore softly._

_"Sammy?" Dan took a step towards her. He suddenly stopped, hand to his head. He swayed, looking surprised as well._

_Reaching over, she latched on to his arm, tossing a very loud "Medic!" over her shoulder before steering him towards the stool close by. Before they could reach it though, Dan uttered a small pained sound, dropping to the floor._

_"Someone get a medic in here!" Sammy grimly gripped Dan's shoulders, bracing him as he shuddered. "Hang on."_

_"God!" He arched his back, his hands shot out and clawed her forearm. She tried to hold him down, keep him still, but all she got was her chin bashed when his thrashing head banged into her face. Swearing, she went around, on her knees and wrapped her arms around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides. _

_"Easy...easy..."_

_"I...I don't understand...it's too s-soon...too s-soon..." Dan's eyes fluttered shut, breathing quickening as the next convulsion made his legs kick out in agony. Blood still streamed from his nose, dripping on her clasped hands. He moaned, his head dropping back to the curve of her throat, thrashing left and right. "J-john..." He called out softly. "I want to see my b-brother...W-where is he?"_

_"He's not here, Dan." She stressed his first name, hoping for another response, but he shook his head._

_"Want to t-talk to him...want to see him one more—"_

_"Don't talk like that!" She held on tighter, not realizing she was marring his forearms with bruises. "We'll get someone here with more of that stuff, and you'll be fine—"_

_"I h-hate that stuff...can't t-think with it inside me..." Dan hunched forward over her arms, gasping in pain. "God..."_

_Sammy closed her eyes. "It's going to be okay."_

_Dan dropped back against her, wheezing. "Sammy...promise me s-something..."_

_She nodded against his hair. "Sure."_

_"Y-you don't even know w-what it is y-yet..."_

_"Look, so long it's not marrying that brother of yours, you can get anything from me." She smiled sadly at his broken laugh._

_"No, he'd have m-my head." Dan's hand shakily reached out and clasped hers. "I h-heard from the others about Jonas..." He swallowed, not finishing it. "I don't want John to—I don't want him to find me like this...not that way...I don't want him to have to—"_

_"I'll do it," she interrupted him, nodding against his cheek. "You have my word."_

_"I'm s-sorry."_

_"Don't be. Just be better. Make sure I don't have to keep that promise."_

_Dan nodded wearily, choking back a sob. His hand dropped, too weak to hold on any more, and his head sagged back against her shoulder. _

_She closed her eyes, feeling the tremors in his body, knowing it'd only get worse, even after getting him some temporary relief through drugs. It'd only get worse. She took a deep breath, making sure her voice was steady, her grip strong to rival the shivering in his body. She allowed him to make such close contact when no one else could. She held him, rocked him, like she held Jonas and felt her heart cracking, all the grief she couldn't allow herself to feel before daring to make an appearance now in front of another stranger's plight. _

_"I want to see my world free again..." Dan whispered. "I d-don't want to die yet..."_

_Sammy tenderly used her sleeve to wipe the blood from his nose and chin. "Then don't."_

Hansen's eyes darkened. No, Jackson didn't go through one measly percent of what Dan had. She didn't know it at the time, but the smart mouthed scholar became a friend to her after that promise, a silent bond even she couldn't understand. No one knew what she'd promised Dan, and Dan never told anyone about the times she came to his room, too tired to act tough, too exhausted to be strong. She allowed only him to hear her sigh with grief, shed a silent tear or two in his room before standing, firming her voice again and walking out as if she was only there to get a progress report.

In exchange for the small moments of solitude and sanctuary, she never told John about the times he would suddenly drop to the floor in pain, the times when he couldn't swallow a bite of food, spending hours retching what little he did manage to consume. She said no word about the times she found him clutching the tablet, weeping to himself when he couldn't remember what he'd done minutes before. She would stay, wait until he could compose himself before getting up to unlock the door she shut to prevent anyone from accidentally walking in.

Like the promise, it was their secret to share.

When their base's energies were too low to keep the sub warm much less his room, too cold for a dying man to stay, he had to go. She stood on the bridge of the U.S.S Cleveland, watching as John carried Dan into another sub where it would deposit them near where Langford was. She went up the conning tower and watched him go; realizing her vigil on this base was going to be twice as lonely now.

And then...Dan was captured.

She wanted to go get him. She really did. But she knew it was a possible trap the Goa'ulds might have set, hoping the undercover spy would reveal himself or herself when rescuing Dan. She knew how little manpower she could spare. And she knew what an opportunity it was when Jermak suddenly announced Ra was returning ahead of schedule to oversee the public execution. Alone. In one single battleship. A chance to finally sneak in and kill the son of a bitch once and for all.

So, when John approached her, asking for assistance to find Dan, she said...no.

Damn her logical mind.

Damn this war.

_"Stop them! Don't let them get to the Stargate!"_

_Running, racing up the ladder, she went to the bridge and caught sight of the two already on the cave floor, John darting around surprised soldiers to reach the stack of crates. He ducked behind them, and she knew he was trying for—the Giza they had hid there for emergencies only during their energy conservation. The Stargate hummed as he pressed the symbols, and she knew where he was going and what he was going to do._

_"Stop them! Don't let them get through!"_

_Someone finally reacted, lunging forward to tackle Cromwell, but the burly colonel dodged him faster than a football player could, running past two others before skidding to a halt in front of the Stargate. Cromwell didn't even flinch as the wormhole gushed out inches from his face. He spun around to find himself surrounded by a dozen soldiers with their rifles trained on him._

_"Back off!" John's voice rang through the cavern. He strode out from behind the crates, his Jaffa uniform gleaming against the snow, his own rifle pointed back at the others. _

_"Hold your fire!" Kawalsky was running towards the pair, waving his arms. "Don't shoot!" He skidded in front of John, gave Hansen a worried look over his shoulder before motioning his hands up and down in soothing waves._

_"Cap...Colonel...what do you guys think you're doing?" Kawalsky's voice was calm. He took another step, freezing when John's rifle clicked loudly._

_"Doing what we should be doing..." John gestured with his weapon. "Not one more step, Kawalsky. Don't make me shoot some valuable body part of yours."_

_"You wouldn't want to do that now, would ya?" Kawalsky stayed where he was, though. "I know you want to get Dan back, but we don't even know where he is!"_

_"She knew. Jolinar contacted her first before finally contacting me!" John nodded his head angrily at her. Some of the soldiers murmured in surprise, turning around to look at her. "She knew for days and never said a word!"_

_"We're not undertaking a rescue mission, Captain," Sammy called out sharply. "It's most likely a trap, and you know it!"_

_"I don't care!" John snapped back. "I'm not leaving him behind!"_

_Hansen brought up her rifle and calmly took aim. She fired one shot. It ricocheted off the edge of John's boot. The man didn't even wince. He glared back at her._

_"You're not stopping me, Commander. No one is."_

_"You're willing to go and drag a good soldier with you on a suicide run?" she barked back. "You're willing to risk over two hundred lives of this base and thousands more for only one man?"_

_"He's my brother!" roared John, his face red with rage and a mix of desperation._

_Hansen saw some of the soldiers hesitating, their rifles lowering a bit. "No one backs down!" she shouted and saw the guns go up again. She glowered at O'Neill and Cromwell. "Neither one of you are leaving this base!"_

_The colonel finally stepped forward. "Commander, I'm sorry, but we're going."_

_She could see other soldiers murmuring to themselves and felt a heat of anger scratching up her back with hot claws. "Do you even realize what you're doing? What risks you're taking with all our lives?"_

_"We won't get captured, Commander." Cromwell grinned crookedly, patting his pack slung over his shoulder. "Do or die."_

_"I'm not leaving him behind," John grated, spinning around as if he was disgusted with the so-called negotiations. "I'm getting him back—"_

_She fired off another shot, right next to his heel. _

_"Sir!" Kawalsky spun around to gawk at her. She ignored him, her eye squinting through the scope, the cross lines right over John's back._

_"Stay where you are, Captain," she seethed. "That's an order."_

_It was the final nail to a coffin. _

_"You forget..." John's voice was thin, but it still echoed throughout the cave. "I take orders from no one." He took another step, daring her to shoot. Cromwell took a step back, towards the Stargate, waving his rifle left and right._

_She...she couldn't fire._

_Amazed at herself, angry with herself, she watched John step through the Stargate, followed by Cromwell to a location where Dan O'Neill was, waiting for Ra to arrive on Earth. She knew she should be furious, and in a way she was as she glared at the Stargate as it snapped shut behind the two deserters. But the anger she felt wasn't as great as the envy choking her throat. She wished she was going with them._

_"Good luck, gentlemen," she whispered, finally lowering her weapon. _

She rubbed her face with a hand, peering out between her fingers to make sure no one was walking by. Hansen frowned, the humming under her back increased a bit to a stronger vibration before settling back down to its regular rhythm. Probably the engines working overtime. She should get Siler to take another look at the Miro. Yet here she was, down in the barracks. What was she doing? With a small snort of disgust, she spun on her heels, taking a step towards the hallway instead, to head back to her office and stop wasting her time considering playing Martha Stewart to their guest.

A muffled sound of something dropping stopped her in her tracks.

Turning back towards the room, she frowned.

There. She heard it again.

Concern furrowing her brow, she didn't bother to knock. Rather, she swung the door wide open and found Doctor Jackson crouched on the floor, unsuccessfully trying to get up.

Swearing under her breath, she strode over. Daniel heard her arrival and stiffened.

"Who's there?"

Not saying a word, she went over, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up until he was on the bed. Wary, Daniel eased out of her grip as she sat beside him.

"It's Commander Hansen, Doctor Jackson," Sammy said finally. She saw the shoulders relax a bit as Daniel nodded.

"Oh...sorry…couldn't tell..." He laughed funny, waving at the bandanna tied around his eyes.

"What were you doing?" she ignored the gesture, studying the room. She noted a few scattered items from a duffel bag lying in the center of the room, a stool on its side.

Daniel flushed, appearing embarrassed. A side quirk tugged at his lips as he shrugged nonchalantly.

"Was trying to get up to go see if I could offer any help." He waved around the room helplessly, the gold circlet on his wrist glinting under the flickering lights. "Um...you know...with translation and...stuff."

"It's all right, Doctor Jackson. Your colonel should be over there by now getting what we require. We don't need your help."

Daniel's hands stilled, and Sammy frowned as she found herself regretting her words.

"I didn't mean it that way," she murmured, wondering why she felt obliged to apologize. "I meant it wasn't necessary being you're—"

"Blind," Daniel supplied. "I know. Just didn't want to sit around doing nothing."

She snorted. "You two are so alike."

"Excuse me?"

"Doctor O'Neill wouldn't stay still either. My men were always finding him trying to get up. Man wouldn't sit still."

"Oh." Dropping his head, Daniel twisted his hands around themselves. "I can imagine how frustrating it must be...unable to do anything, wishing you could."

The commander resisted the urge to snort.

"Did you want to speak with me?"

Sammy blinked. "What?"

Daniel gestured towards the direction of the door. "You were standing there for a long time."

"You could tell?" she asked, surprised. Darting a glance over to the door, she wondered how much he could hear from where he was.

"Well, when you're in a quiet place like here and really can't sleep," Daniel smiled tightly, "Everything seems a little louder." He shrugged. "I heard you tapping your fingers outside before."

She frowned. "Didn't want to speak with you, Doctor Jackson. I was merely passing through to check on your status."

"My status," Daniel repeated. "You don't trust us, do you?"

She scowled. "I'm not here to make friends."

"Yes, yes. I know. You're here to win a war." Daniel leaned back, head against the wall. "In my reality, the Sam I know is a good friend of mine."

"Uh huh."

"She goes through the Stargate with us every time. Brilliant mind, although a little too focused on her work." Pausing, Daniel chuckled. "Then again, Jack might say the same about the both of us."

"Jack?" Sammy nodded to herself. "Oh...yeah, that's right. Colonel O'Neill. You call him Jack?"

"Well...I can't call him sir. Sounds too weird." Daniel shrugged again. "I'm on his team, but somehow rank never seems to fit his name. He's...well...he's Jack." Though _long ago, he was Colonel O'Neill to me on the first mission._ Daniel smiled sadly. It was amazing how many years had passed since then. His smile faded as he realized how much had happened as well.

Not noticing the change in his expression, she scratched her chin absently. "So you're not related yet you run around under his command, calling him by first name. Odd. Very odd."

"Whatever works." Daniel sat forward, falling silent, one hand absently picking on the threadbare blanket crumpled next to him.

Sammy studied the bowed head, pursing her lips. "Why are you helping us?"

Lifting his head, Daniel frowned. "I don't follow you."

"Why are you popping up here when you obviously have it much better back in your own reality?"

"We want to help."

Sammy snorted. Disgusted, she rose, heading for the door.

"I've seen what it was like."

She stopped and turned around.

Daniel rubbed his hands against his thighs, rocking forward a bit as he remembered. "I accidentally went through a similar portal to another reality...it was the same scenario. The Goa'ulds...the planet...all my friends..." He swallowed.

"They couldn't stop the Goa'ulds from destroying their world, but they managed to send me back to my world, my reality to prevent our deaths. They died in order to give me that chance. Saw it as a warning to me, the accident getting into their reality. A sort of premonition—to get back and tell Jack about it."

She twisted around and reached for the door, pausing. She glanced over her shoulder back at him. "Do you...do you want to see this place you're trying to save?"

Daniel's mouth opened to a small circle but shut it quickly. "Oh. Sure." With difficulty, he got up, hand grabbing the edge of the bunk above him. He stumbled, bumping into Hansen, who stepped forward to catch him. "Sorry."

Making no response, she gripped his hand tightly, guiding it to her elbow. Noticing his wrist was thicker, stronger than Dan's was, she clenched her jaw, sliding her eyes towards his left wrist where a gold wire, similar to what Jack O'Neill wore, lay snug against his wrist bone. She could feel his trembling though.

"Do you need any more of that Tok'ra potion? We could probably spare a vial or two..."

"No...Jolinar left one for me already, but I dropped it on the floor." Daniel appeared guilty, his mouth bending down as he murmured, "Couldn't find it though. Tried looking for it."

Hansen gave the room a quick scan and shook her head. "Don't see it. Are you sure?"

"No...maybe when the guy came in, it got kicked around to somewhere else."

Hansen stopped, her hand on the knob. "Guy?"

"Whoever was in here to talk to me after Jack left." Daniel cocked his head to the side. "He wasn't sent by you?"

"I hadn't assigned a guard for this door yet, Doctor Jackson." Opening the door carefully, she guided Daniel over the threshold, feeling the steady grip of his hand on her elbow. She noted with surprise that he was standing a bit taller than her even slouched over.

"Commander?" Daniel turned towards her, puzzled, nearly stumbling as he lost his balance.

Her hand shot forward before she realized it, snagging his other hand to brace him. Her thumb rubbed the cold bracelet on his flesh before he stepped back, mumbling his apologies.

"No problem," she said gruffly. "Come on...I'll show you around this sub, let you know what it looks like."

Daniel wanted to say he already suspected what it looked like. He could hear the whine and hum of the sub around him, the catches of grumbling soldiers walking by the door, but he nodded. "Thank you."

"I'm sure my leaders would like to talk to you some more as well."

"Of course. They must have a lot of questions."

Hansen steered him around a door some idiot had left open in their haste. She kicked the door back shut with her heel as she walked by it, hand still on his wrist, his hand on her elbow. "We need to know as much as we can of what you can recall."

"I'll try my best." Jackson was quick to promise.

Sammy regarded him for a second, amazed at how ready he was to answer, unlike his comrade, who sounded more like he would rather bark out orders than talk.

_Of course if you were a bit more diplomatic about it..._

"Commander?" Daniel asked again.

"Call me," she said hesitantly as she saw the hallway was empty. "Call me Sammy."

Daniel smiled sadly. "You can call me Daniel."

She grunted. "Sure." She eyed him carefully. "Friends, huh? You must have driven her up the wall."

"No...Actually, we both drove Jack up the wall."

"That must have been funny to see." Hansen smirked at the idea of the colonel pulling his hair out. Must be why he had more gray than John O'Neill did.

"Believe me; I would be more than happy to be home to give you a demonstration."


	29. Chapter 28

**CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT**

When General Hammond received the call, he already knew what they were going to say. He knew what the voice behind the red phone was going to ask. And truthfully, he answered to the higher ups.

He didn't know.

No. He didn't know how two members of his best team got lost on the other side.

No. He didn't know if their reality had been compromised.

No. He didn't know how long their two guests could stay in this reality.

And no...he didn't know how to get his two men back.

Needless to say, the voice on the other line wasn't too happy.

Sitting there in his chair, pretending not to see Davis fidget as the liaison stood by the glass partition dividing his office from the meeting room, General Hammond nodded to the phone. With a weary "I understand" he hung up the receiver.

"General Hammond?" Davis had waited during the whole call, standing still. With the end of the conversation, he was rocking on his heels back and forth. "Sir?"

He nodded tiredly at the phone.

"We still have a go for the rescue mission if we can find a way there, but—"

"It's only a matter of time," Davis finished.

Hammond pursed his lips. Some things were better left unsaid, but as usual, Davis saw fit to say it. Nodding again, concurring, Hammond eyed the clock sitting by his grandchildren's photos.

Two days.

A little over two days since Colonel Jack O'Neill and Doctor Daniel Jackson were trapped on the other side of the alien portal. Two days, leaving them only four days to figure out how to get the two back, get their guests home, and help them defeat a Goa'uld who should have been long since dead.

Hammond didn't notice Davis slipping out of the room. Staring at the empty briefing room just beyond the partition glass with its circular maps of the universe etched in white, he remembered how only a few days ago, they were all sitting out there talking about defeating Ra.

_Did we become so conceited about our victories that we slipped up?_

Tapping his fingertips together, leaning forward to stare at the unsigned reports in the center of his desk, Hammond realized they were too quick to assume this mission would go as smooth as silk.

They had done this before. Going across to another reality.

And they had won.

_We were so wrong to assume this would be just the same. We tried it like a damn milk run._

"Sir?"

General Hammond looked up. Davis had an apologetic expression on his face, door opened partly to reveal Doctor Rothman standing behind him. The bearded archeologist looked winded as if he'd run all the way.

Getting up, mildly concerned with the red face peering back anxiously at him, Hammond gave Davis a questioning frown.

"Sorry, sir. He was here before, but you were on the phone with the President. I thought it best he wait outside first."

"Doctor Rothman?" Hammond gestured the archeologist to come in. "What seems to be the problem?"

Squeezing around Davis, Rothman was waving a hand, like he was catching his breath. "Um...I was with Daniel—no, no, no I keep forgetting. I mean Doctor O'Neill...over there...and..." He wheezed, pushing up his glasses as he continued. "We were doing the translations of the tablet he had—very hard to do as my field of expertise was paleontology not linguistics, but I did do research for Daniel back in—"

"Doctor Rothman," Davis interrupted when it appeared Hammond wouldn't. "What is it?"

"We've translated the text—not all of it, just the section before the coded parts. Doctor O'Neill said it mentioned a key." Rothman took a deep breath. "He wants to speak with you. Urgently."

Hammond exchanged an alarmed look with the liaison but rose from his seat. "I'll be in Doctor Jackson's office," he told Davis, quickly following Rothman out of the room without question.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Sighing, Sam called for another break, clicking her stopwatch to stop the timing sequence. A few stray soldiers breathed a sigh of relief, plopping down heavily on the floor. But many were lingering around, waiting for her to call to continue.

No one asked about heading home.

Studying the chamber around her, noting a few more cracks revealed in greater detail thanks to the spotlights they had up, Sam frowned as she felt the chamber shiver once more with another tremor. She studied the ceiling worriedly.

"Should I radio in a report?" Ferretti came up from behind her.

Sam made a face. "And report what?" She massaged her right hand, eyeing the red indent in her thumb where she kept clicking over the stopwatch. It looked like a permanent scar of the uselessness of this experiment.

Moving her fingers up to her temples, she massaged slowly, watching as a stray archeologist wandered in and out of several of the hundreds of rooms the chamber hosted.

"Stern over there thinks he almost got the wall translated completely. The one Daniel was working on about what happened here." Ferretti pointed to one room lurking in a dark corner where one man was busy scribbling notes furiously into a small notebook. The sight made her eyes sting. "Said without his notes, he wouldn't have been able to figure out half that shit."

Hopeful, Sam darted her attention to the room. "What does it say?"

"Aw...beats the hell out of me. Something about those bracelets as a quick fix."

"What?" Sam studied her own circlet with a frown.

Ferretti shrugged. Apparently he hadn't paid much attention to the scientists working back there. "He babbled about Sumerian lettering and stuff like I would know what he was talking about." Waving his rifle in a circle, he grimaced. "Said the bracelets work but once they're off...something about the cycle begins immediately?"

Sam frowned. "Cycle? Maybe they were talking about the entropic cascade effect?"

"Uhhhh...sure. Guess so." Ferretti gave her a funny look. "Whatever you say."

Shaking her head, Sam dropped the topic. "Nothing about the wall itself?"

"Nah. Guess them aliens figured they knew how to get it working and left it at that." Tipping back his cap, Ferretti staggered a step back as one tremor rocked the chamber more violently. "God damn it!"

Sam scanned the ceiling. "They're getting worse."

"No shit, Carter. Tell me something new." Ferretti straightened, only to fall right on his butt. "I don't know how the colonel and Daniel could stay on their feet that whole time when the place was shaking back and forth. You got to be a surfer to ride these waves."

Checking her meter, Sam nodded to herself. "Energy readouts are still the same, though. They don't affect the portal in any way." She slipped the meter to her belt loop, studying the wall. Her own harried face stared back at her. Suddenly, the prospect of standing by, shouting out steps and numbers wasn't appealing any more.

"Carter?" Wondering why she was standing there, not calling for the break to be over, Ferretti gave her a poke.

"Why don't you take a break?" Sam suggested. She handed him the clipboard that was her constant companion the past few hours. "I'll take over your role."

"You sure?"

She nodded vehemently. "I want to stretch my legs a bit anyway. I-" She yelped as the chamber rocked once more. She didn't fall though, crashing into Ferretti before the soldier whipped his arms up to brace her. She could hear other soldiers grumbling, their grousing echoing throughout the structure.

"Everyone okay?" she called out.

A few stray affirmatives responded, but John was still silent. He did look over his shoulder, weary dark eyes dully looking back at her, waiting.

Sam cleared her dry throat. "Okay...I'm going to stand in for Ferretti by the DHD. Captain O'Neill? On our mark, you can begin."

John didn't answer, but he went back to position. She stared at his stiff back for a moment before shaking her head. She shouldn't be wasting time. She'd tried talking with the captain with little result. The only person who could talk to him, she suspected, would be his brother back at the SGC.

At the thought of the ailing man, she gave a silent prayer to whoever might be listening, asking that he'd be okay after all this was over. Daniel's face materialized in her mind, and she swallowed, mentally adding a prayer for her lost friend as well.

"Okay!" Sam jogged over to the platform. "Get the rovers ready! Captain O'Neill? Once the portal is activated, you can begin maneuvering the first one through."

Grunting an okay, John shook the remote control in his hands, watching the wall shimmer once as she stepped on the coverstone, slowly clearing to the same grove they were staring at before.

As she watched the rover slowly making its way towards the portal, she bit her thumbnail, wondering if she was missing anything. She had the readings done; they basically matched with what had happened. Temperature and conditions were relatively the same. Only thing missing was the fact the original two who were on the other side were gone.

Staring at the mirror, she clenched her fists, catching a glimpse of the colonel falling, lunging at the DHD as the chamber on the other side rocked under staff weapon fire. She could see light flickering from the ceiling as something very large settled down over them.

She should be going through.

But she had her orders.

No one could cross over and risk revealing this place.

"First rover through!" Ferretti called out, startling her. Sam shook her head, catching in time the wall snapping back in place when the rover no longer blocked the middle. She nodded, glancing over to Ferretti, who rattled off some numbers to her. She stopped herself from sighing. They were still the same. Everything—

"Oh crap!" someone yelped as the structure suddenly felt like it jumped up a few feet. Sam didn't have time to shout a warning as she found herself going up a few inches, slamming into the DHD. Clawing the panels, she stopped herself from rolling off the coverstone into an embarrassing heap.

"Just for the record, I really hate this!" Anderson from the back shouted, grunted as he banged against a statue.

"No kidding," Ferretti muttered as he got up. "Everyone alright back there? Carter? You okay?"

Wincing, she nodded, pushing off from the DHD. "Yeah." The major made a face, realizing she'd pressed two symbols by accident when the tremor threw them off balance. "I'm surprised this place is still standing."

"I'm surprised we're still standing," Ferretti grumbled as he jogged over to John. "Captain? You okay?"

"Fine," the captain grated out as he brushed off his pants.

"The colonel and Jackson must have been raised on seesaws," one of Ferretti's men joked weakly. "I don't know how they stayed on their feet."

"Please," scoffed Ferretti. "They were hugging that other DHD and the floor like we were!"

They were. Sam stared at the DHD device. The lighted panels slowly faded since no other symbols were pressed. Biting her lower lip, she rubbed her hand where it had bumped into the panels when she fell.

_The structure on the colonel's side vibrated visibly, and she cringed as she saw O'Neill slam into the DHD, arms whipping out to its sides to brace himself._

_The wall flickered._

She tapped the DHD absently. One of the panels lit.

_The structure on the colonel's side vibrated visibly, and she cringed as she saw O'Neill slam into the DHD, arms whipping out to its sides to brace himself._

_The wall flickered._

"Carter...what are you doing?" Ferretti asked, puzzled as he saw the major tap on another chevron, lighting up the Stargate's first chevron brace.

"I left out a factor," Sam muttered as she tapped another symbol.

"And that is...?"

She nodded towards the ceiling. "The quakes."

"Eh?"

Sam banged on the DHD frantically now. A growing suspicion ate at the edge of her mind, screaming she was close. She was so close!

"Carter! What the hell are you doing?" Ferretti ran to her, arm out to grab hers. She jerked it away.

"Major, have you gone nuts?" Coming up to her, John gaped at her, fists slamming at the panels.

"The colonel...when the first variation of the portal started, they were on the DHD." She slapped another symbol at random.

"We know that! We've been playing that situation enough times to know it!" John tried to grab her arm, staring at her as if she'd gone insane.

"But we assumed something the portal did change the realities that the DHD was part of the gate system, but what if it isn't? What if what changed the flow of reaction wasn't the portal but something we hadn't considered? What if the factor was us, not the portal or the structure itself?" She grabbed both sides of the DHD and tried to shake it. Of course, being it weighed tons, it didn't move. She snorted, frustrated. "Of course! This has to be it!"

"Do you have any idea what the hell she's talking about?" John demanded. Ferretti only shrugged.

"The DHD!" Sam banged a fist on the panels. "Remember how the colonel fell on this thing after a tremor? What if he touched something accidentally?"

John stared at the column. "You mean..."

She nodded. "We all thought the DHD platform was for the wall and the DHD device was for our Stargate as usual. But what if the DHD as a whole, platform and device, controls the wall?" She stared at the two men, watching as their eyes widened.

Ferretti didn't ask for any more explanations. He slammed a fist down on the panels. "Anderson! Booker! Get over here, and help us out!"

The two soldiers in the back started at the order. They dropped their packs and came running over, only gawking briefly at the sight of the three banging at the DHD before joining in.

After a few minutes, Sam took a step back, running a hand through her hair, frustrated. "I was so sure..."

"Maybe it was a combination of something," John suggested, twisting around to check the portal. The scene remained the same, and his shoulders slumped.

"Why the hell was the colonel pressing the symbols, though?" Anderson wanted to know. The tall soldier scratched his stubbled cheek. "Was he dialing for Earth on that side?"

Sam shook her head. "He wasn't dialing. The quakes must have thrown him off balance as it did for us, and he fell over it. He then must have accidentally hit something. Then Daniel..." She stopped.

Daniel had fallen to the platform, appearing to be hiding under the DHD, hands out against the underbelly of the device. The colonel was standing over him, looking over across to them with the grimmest face she had ever seen.

"Major?" John leaned over, peering at her open-mouthed expression. "Uh...Carter?"

"They weren't pressing any symbols." She spun around to gape at their Stargate. "We would have seen the chevrons light up if that was the case."

Daniel had fallen to the platform, appearing to be hiding under the DHD, hands out against the underbelly of the device.

"He was under it."

Ferretti and John looked at each other. "Huh?" the major managed with an arched eyebrow. "Who was?"

"Daniel. He wasn't hiding!" Carter slapped her forehead. "God, we've been going about this all wrong!" Abruptly, she dropped to her knees.

"Carter!" Alarmed, thinking she must have passed out or something, John bent over to haul her up when she gave a soft cry, staring at something under the DHD and slammed her hand on its belly.

"Oh shit! What the hell did you do?" yelped Ferretti. John whipped his head up.

And stared at the wall which shimmered.

Just like before.

Dumbfounded, the rest of the soldiers looked down at Carter, who was peering through their legs, smiling tiredly as she saw the desired effect on the mirrored wall.

"Bingo," she murmured.

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Staring at the tablet Jolinar held in her hands, Jack didn't know whether to whoop out loud or just nod solemnly like he was expecting it.

He decided gawking would suffice.

"This is similar to the tablet Machello passed me before I hid it for Dan-yel to find," Jolinar said. She ran a hand across its flat surface. "There is no reader stone for it unlike the others."

"Yeah, trust me. Don't try using those," Jack muttered, eyeing the discarded tablets Kawalsky left piled on the floor. His hands instinctively curled. "They may be booby trapped."

"Booby trapped?" echoed the Tok'ra. She turned to peer at the items and shrugged. "No matter. We have what we came for."

"Commander wants us to see if there's anything else we can use," Kawalsky called out, reminding them. "Then we head back."

Jack nodded. "There may be stuff here you guys can use." He grimaced as he studied the red veiled room. "What, I don't know..." He threw up his arms. "Hell, let me search that end of the room to speed things up, okay?"

"Your friend is well, Colonel O'Neill."

Looking at Jolinar suspiciously, Jack grumbled, "I know. I wasn't rushing because of that."

Jolinar gave him a secretive smile. "Of course not." She nodded graciously at the DHD. "I will be searching around there." She carefully wrapped the tablet with a cloth, tucking it in the pack she carried.

"Want me to hold it for you, Miss Jolinar?" Simmons offered, staring at her pack.

Jack checked the younger soldier up and down, noting the bouncy exuberance Simmons had displayed before was gone; even his hair had gone flat. He made a face. "It ain't heavy. I'm sure it'll be fine with her."

Grunting, Kawalsky nodded towards the back. "Why don't you see if there's anything back there we could use, Graham? We still got a few hours before checking back with base."

Graham checked his watch, eyes darting left and right. "Yes, sir." He didn't look too happy.

Frowning at Simmons' back, Jack grunted. "Don't blame him."

Kawalsky glanced up, confused. "Huh?"

"Didn't look thrilled about staying here any longer," Jack said, jerking a thumb towards the back of the room. "Although he was damn bouncy before."

The captain grinned. "He was, wasn't he? Reminds me of Doc at times."

Jack arched an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"You should have seen Dan at John's retirement party." Kawalsky waved his hand, grinning. "Before he and his brother got asked to the Stargate thing in Cheyenne. Man, Dan was like here and there, trying to get everything right."

Smirking, Jack rubbed his hands on his flightsuit, feeling odd not having Kevlar brushing underneath his palms as he did. "Yeah?"

Kawalsky laughed out loud, earning a smile from Jolinar's direction. "Damn kid! He was like 'No, this goes there' and 'We need more of-'. I thought he was going to bust! And his damn hair! Kept flying all over the place, blocking his eyes!"

The colonel snickered. "Oh yeah. The hair. Daniel had this long hair down to his eyes." He pretended to pull a long strand over his forehead. "You don't know how many times I wanted to take a shaver and do him a crew while he slept!"

For some reason, the captain laughed harder.

Wiping a tear from his eye, Kawalsky pointed to himself. "Me and Ferretti, we were out fishing on leave with John and invited him along when he was asleep..." He clapped a hand over his mouth. "We dyed his hair!"

"You what?"

Kawalsky howled and had to lean against one of the tarp covered boxes, glancing back at it for a second before continuing. "Oh damn, you should have seen Cap's face...when he woke up and found his little bro a...a redhead!"

Jack stared at him. "What did Dan do?"

"Do? He didn't even notice! He had his hair under that damn boonie hat the whole trip...didn't know why we kept offering him a comb." Kawalsky wiped a tear off his eye. "Then he got home and we said he could use the bathroom first." Snickering, the captain stuttered. "The scream—oh man. I heard it even out on the lawn...shit..."

Chuckling, Jack wondered if he could get away with that with Daniel. _Nah. He's a light sleeper like me. First sound of a gunshot and he's up. _Jack sobered a little. Over the years, Daniel had honed his instincts like a soldier, ready to jump to alert. Too many missions, too many bad guys made Daniel a fast reactor.

Jack rubbed his face ruefully. To this day, he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

"Man. I really miss those days..."

At Kawalsky's sigh, his voice abruptly dropping the jovial tone, Jack turned to the captain. Kawalsky still stood there, back to the boxes, hand curled around one of the items he'd been picking up before. Jolinar was discreetly gone.

"They sounded great, Kawalsky," Jack murmured.

The captain's eyes narrowed, and his lips curled back in anger. "They were. They all were." He stood there, glaring at the floor for the longest time. Finally, he raised his head, dark eyes like coal. "War sucks." He straightened, brushing his palms on his pants. The soldier paused, looking up to study Jack.

"What?"

"Were we friends? I heard you mention..."

Jack shrugged. "No hair dying pranks though, Kawalsky. But yeah, we were friends." He gazed at the clutter around the chamber, his eyes darkening. "You were on the first mission with me to Abydos, too."

"Oh. So we were friends before I died I guess."

Jack stiffened.

Kawalsky gave a shaky laugh. "Hell, that sounds weird! Sorry. Daniel told me. I didn't mean...well...you know..."

"In the line of duty, Kawalsky." _I gave the order_, Jack thought. Out loud, he gestured towards Kawalsky. "In the line of duty."

The captain nodded, noting the pained expression before it slipped away from Jack's eyes. "Didn't mean to—"

"It's okay," Jack interrupted. "It was a long time ago. It's done. In the past."

"Old history," Kawalsky quipped. He checked the area. "Time to do something about the future."

Jack gazed at the worn uniform his friend's twin was wearing, and his brow furrowed. He could see old stains of blood and stitched patches at the sleeves. Like his, someone else had worn them before. "Something about the future. Yeah." Jack went back to work, any complaints about rummaging for stuff vanished. He gazed at the silent Stargate for a moment, briefly thought of Daniel and wondered how he was faring before he forced himself to get back to work.

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When Hammond arrived at the office, he saw Doctor Frasier had gotten there faster, sitting beside a totally drained looking Dan O'Neill, who sat there leaning against Teal'c.

Alarmed, he walked in without knocking, his heavy steps alerting Dan he had guests.

Dan stiffened, head lifting as his blank eyes directed themselves towards the entrance. "Who?"

"It is General Hammond," Teal'c reported, moving away as Dan straightened. A shaky hand rubbing his face, Dan nodded.

"I was told you translated the text, Doctor O'Neill?"

Dan gave a funny laugh. "I did..." He took a shuddering breath, fumbling for the tablet until Frasier placed it in his hands.

"Machello was very clever," Dan murmured. "He used an old language of ours and changed some of the vowels around so anyone without any past experience with the language wouldn't have been able to realize its roots were Greek. Every fourth syllable he broke off to stand as their own. I almost didn't figure..." Dan fingered the text. "Anyway, thanks to Rothman, we've found out that the text was referring to a key of some kind."

"Key?" Janet asked, frowning down at the strange lettering on the stone surface. "I thought you needed two tablets to decipher the codes to get into the battleships."

"You do, but without the key, you can't even get into the maze the tablets map out for you." Shaking his head, Dan's voice dropped to a whisper. "It's no use though."

Hammond was puzzled. "Doctor O'Neill, why do you say that?"

"The key...wearing the god's blessing? The god is Ra."

Teal'c nodded. "He regarded himself as such."

"To wear the god, to show he is of Ra's likeness, he needs the eye of Horus, or the eye of Ra." Pointing up his index finger, Dan made a gesture in the air, shaping the movements with curves in an eye shape. "To wear the eye of Ra like in a necklace." Dan got off the stool, stumbling away from everyone. He shook his head when he felt Janet's hand on his elbow. "No, let me finish..."

"Doctor O'Neill," Hammond began to realize what he was referring to. He had seen it before, briefly.

"The key...it's really a necklace that bore the eye of Ra." Dan found the table and leaned over it, head bowed. "I've seen it before. Many times before."

_"I don't believe it," she murmured, eyes glistening. Her hand absently rubbed the gold object that dangled from her thick necklace. "You did it!"_

_"I did!" Dan grinned back broadly. He felt elated, flying high as weeks of work finally paid off. He couldn't wait to dash upstairs and tell John the news. His eyes wandered down to where the pendant dangled. "Is that some good luck charm of yours? Keep seeing you rub it ever since I first got here."_

_"My good luck charm," Catherine murmured with a soft smile. The elderly woman brushed her fingertips over the delicate cuttings of an eye relief. "It was found on the plateau along with the doorway and the cartouche. Couldn't believe my father let me keep it. He was probably too distracted by the doorway itself. Been with me ever since."_

_"Maybe I should rub it too then," Dan teased. "Brought me the best of luck. Brought me to this project!"_

_Catherine laughed as she shook her head, white hair coming loose from her bun. "You brought your own luck, Doctor O'Neill!"_

_Dan only grinned back at her._

"Many times," Dan murmured sadly. "We have..._had_ a scientist by the name of Catherine Langford. She headed the initial project."

Hammond nodded. He waited for Dan to finish.

"She had this necklace...always wore it with her. Said she found it with the original Stargate and the stone platform underneath it. Must have been with a lord or nobleman under Ra's court. It had his symbol, his status on a pendant." Dan raised his head. "Ra's blessing."

"So you have the key then," Hammond murmured with a smile. It faded when he heard Dan choke.

"No, we don't...it was always with her...her lucky charm but it ran out of luck for her and..." Stooped over the desk, Dan couldn't finish.

Janet got up and went to him. "Are you okay? Maybe we should take you back to your—"

"We have no key, General," Dan said suddenly. His shoulders slumped low as he hunched over the desk, elbows on the table. "We have no key. Even if we get the damn map, we can't even get in. Can't get to Ra. Can't get to his shields, his weapons, his records. Nothing!" Dan didn't react to the hand running up and down his back. He shuddered. "I'm sorry, General Hammond, but your men...they tried to help us...all for nothing! We have no key!"

"We do."

Dan lifted his head. "W-what did you say?"

Walking over to Dan, Hammond placed a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "The Doctor Langford of our reality, is alive. She still has the necklace. I've seen it before. She never takes it off." He smiled as he recalled. "Thinks of it as her lucky charm, too."

Dan stuttered, leaning towards Hammond. "She's...she's alive?"

The general frowned. Apparently, there was more to what had happened to the other Catherine he didn't know about. A growing feeling of dread came over him as he replied. "Yes, she is. Doctor Jackson still keeps in contact with her."

Whispering to himself, Dan didn't appear to have heard Hammond. "She's—oh God—then we..."

"I'll call her right away and ask her to bring the necklace, Doctor O'Neill."

Dan reached out, clutching Hammond's wrist out of desperation. "You can have her come here? To this base?"

"Yes." Hammond hedged, not liking the wild tone in Dan's voice.

"I need to see her."

Hammond stared at the scholar. "What?"

"Catherine. I need to see her. Please. Let me talk to her."

Shaking his head, Hammond gently pulled Dan's hand away. "I'm sorry, Doctor O'Neill, but I can't do that. We wouldn't be able to explain to her about you and your brother. She no longer has the clearance to—"

"Fuck clearance!" Dan staggered drunkenly, grabbing Hammond's sleeve again. "Please. Please! Let me talk to her. There's so much..." His voice broke off. "So much I need to—Please..."

Janet tried to coax him "Maybe we should take this conversation back to your room. You're tired and—"

"Stop telling me how I feel!" Dan shouted, spinning around, nearly colliding with Hammond. Surprised, the general brought his hands up and caught Dan before Teal'c could reach him. "Please! I just need to talk to her. I really want to see her!"

"Doctor O'Neill," Hammond tried again. "I can't allow—"

Dan was shaking so hard, still mumbling to himself.

"I have to talk to her. I have to—You must let me see her."

Hammond stared down at the scholar hunched over. "Doctor O'Neill..." he started, trailing off as he gazed at Janet helplessly.

Dan wouldn't listen. They didn't understand. None of them did. They weren't there when she—He slammed the lid shut on the memory, but God, he could still hear her! He could still hear her in his head! He couldn't help her.

No. She was alive. They just said so. She was _alive_, still wearing her good luck charm. He had to see her. He needed to talk to her!

"Please," he croaked, breath quickening as he heard her screaming again. If he could talk to her, hear how she was before and replace at least one sound from his mind. "I need to..."

Strength spent, Dan's head lolled back, unable to hear them calling out to him frantically.

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_"Look, I don't pretend to know anything about astrophysics, but couldn't the planets have changed?"_

_Captain Carter stared at him, breaking into a huge grin as if she had found the key to the universe. "I knew I would like you."_

_Blinking, Daniel was unprepared for that response, mentally readying for an onslaught of debate but getting this instead. All he could do was stutter "Y-you mean I was right?"_

_Nodding once, her gaze sweeping across the huge golden chamber, Captain Carter rapidly made her point, and Daniel found himself incredibly intrigued by the prospect of a fellow scientist who for once wouldn't scoff at his theories but rather jump on them as new possibilities. It was something he hadn't encountered in a long time._

"And this is the mess hall...what's left of it, since we had to convert it to an extension of our infirmary."

Daniel nodded absently, counting steps and turns at each point of location as her hand on his elbow steered him around the sub. Every so often, he caught a stray greeting, some calling him Dan, others calling him Doctor O'Neill. After hearing Hansen correcting them a few times, he finally shook his head at her, too tired to complain about the mistake. Let them assume whatever they wanted. He was too tired to bother, too tired to care. The more he walked in the cold sub, the more he knew he had to help them, and her hand on his elbow was a very sore reminder of how he wasn't doing that.

As he walked in the disturbing darkness, he felt his mind spinning, casting him back to the chaotic images of days before.

Daniel clenched his fists, tongue swiping his lower lip to wash anything out of what might have remained of her touch. He didn't see red hair, glowing eyes; he saw Janet Frasier's face as she sneered down at him. The hands running across his body—

"Doctor Jackson?" Sammy stopped in her tracks, hearing the catch of breath. Noting the ragged breathing, she pulled him quickly into one of the labs they had passed, helping him down onto one of the stools. The archeologist waved his hand, trying to tell her he was fine, but he panted all the same, trying to catch his breath.

The commander discreetly closed the door and leaned over him. "Easy," she murmured, slipping back into routine.

"Sorry," Jackson murmured, looking horrified at his reaction.

Blinking, remembering this time and place wasn't from her memory, Sammy slipped her hand away before it automatically moved it up to his head like she'd do with Dan to ease his headache. She stood straighter.

"You okay now?" she asked, towering over him.

"Was remembering something...guess I was pushing it..." Shaking his head, the archeologist gave a funny laugh. "Back on the ship. " He sighed. "Trying to remember...it could be important."

"Look," she said, surprising herself. "Don't press it. It'll come when it's ready. We know he's coming; that's all we need."

"And Machello's tablets."

Sammy nodded. "And Machello's tablets." She tilted her head, eyeing him. "How are you taking all this?"

Looking surprised at the question, Daniel's mouth opened, no words coming out. Finally, he stumbled out a "Me?" He wiped his mouth with a hand, covering the deep breath he took to steady himself. "Tired...restless, can't sleep...but I'm okay."

Frowning, she thought it sounded like he was chanting to himself again. Pursing her lips, telling herself this isn't Dan, back off and do your job, she stretched out her hand and tapped him on the wrist, right on the bracelet before snagging a corner of his sleeve. The thin metal reminded her once more this wasn't her friend, not a kindred spirit, rather a guest on an unfortunate tour of their destroyed world.

"General Hammond and the rest should be in the other sub, the Cleveland right now. Or do you want to explore more of the Miro or maybe the Franklin?"

Daniel shook his head, working on his lower lip with his teeth, a gleam of white flashing occasionally as he gnawed. "No...We never really got a chance to talk before. I guess now would be as good a time as any." He rose steadily, straightening. "Sorry, didn't mean to waste your time. I'm okay now."

Gazing up at him, she suddenly realized he was really a bit taller than her, and it bothered her to see him standing so erect when his double spent more time slouched in pain. Her hand unknowingly clenched around his sleeve, pulling the material taut around his arm.

"Commander Hansen?"

"Let's go," she said hoarsely, pulling at him without apology, out of the room. She had a bad taste in her mouth that wouldn't go away as she heard the footsteps behind her, Daniel recovering enough to walk steadily now.


	30. Chapter 29

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**CHAPTER TWENTY NINE**

"Bingo," Sam murmured, rising slowly. The crowd around the DHD parted, letting her pass, and she approached the wall with a mixture of awe and disappointment.

Awe at how a small touch of the coil her fingers found under the DHD could make the entire wall shimmer like the surface of mother of pearl without a change in energy or added shuddering of strain.

Disappointment that she hadn't found this sooner.

"Carter, what did you do?" Ferretti managed as he twisted around to gawk at the DHD.

"There's a switch, a ring of some kind under the DHD. The colonel must have found it when he held onto the DHD after the tremors threw them off balance." Sam pivoted on her heels, back toward the platform. "The entire platform, the DHD is the control for this thing!"

The soldiers, at her words, warily stepped away from it.

John reached towards it, to touch it, but yanked his hand back. "The Giza? The whole thing?"

"Yes. The smaller version of this mirror had a remote control that used a dial which turned left or right like a jog shuttle on a VCR." Sam cupped her hands together, indicating the size slightly larger than an orange. "They kept everything we needed to make it work all in one device. We should have figured they would do the same here!" She slapped her fist into her other hand.

"You didn't know, but you've figured it out now."

"I know, sir, but—" She stopped. For a moment, it sounded like the colonel. She glanced over to John and saw the tight smile on his face and knew.

"Okay." Her voice brisk, she motioned to the scientists still remaining in the back to come over. Ferretti whistled sharply to get their attention. "We'll start dialing in smaller increments then in larger sweeps."

"Wait, we know how to use it now. Shouldn't we start thinking about going back?" John protested. "I mean, come on...how many other realities do you think we have to search through?"

Sam and Ferretti looked at each other.

"I'll radio base for more help," Ferretti muttered, running back to the DHD. But before he could begin, the first chevron lit.

"Major?" Sam turned around at the first tremble of the gate.

Ferretti threw out his hands. "Ain't me." He grabbed his weapon, others already going back into position behind cover.

Sam barely had a moment to tell everyone to hold their fire, that it could be someone from their base, when Teal'c came through. The Jaffa stood there impassively, not at all bothered by the guns pointed at him until someone shouted out his identity, that it was all clear, and the rifles finally lowered.

"Teal'c!" Grinning, Sam bounded up to him. "Just in time. We've figured out how it works," She stopped, reading concern in the Jaffa's dark eyes, his face emotionless. "What is it?"

Saying nothing, Teal'c turned towards John, standing back behind the DHD. The captain felt the gaze and stood up, alarmed.

"Dan?" he started to ask.

Teal'c nodded. "I would recommend you return with me, Captain O'Neill."

John didn't ask. He didn't even look at the others. He dropped his pack and ran towards the Jaffa, Ferretti already punching the symbols for earth behind him.

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_Hands clutched his shoulders, shaking him hard and frantic. It jerked him out of sleep abruptly._

_"What?" Dan mumbled, trying to sit up. More hands, other voices were buzzing above him, and he felt his feet being shoved into boots. Alarmed, he struggled briefly. _

_"Dan," Catherine's voice was close to his ear. Her voice was fast and urgent as her hands gripped his forearms tightly. "You have to listen to me."_

_Worried at the sound of the tense tone, Dan nodded and stopped protesting, even when other hands roughly shoved his arms through sleeves. The indignity of being dressed like a child went unnoticed as he focused on her voice._

_"We have to leave," Ernest said a short distance away. Dan cocked his head towards the source. He could hear other voices, hurried ones, speaking quickly, fading as they rushed by his closed off area._

_"We're coming!" Catherine helped him to his feet. Dan gasped, feeling his legs wobble, unaccustomed to such abrupt moves. "Dan? We have to leave now. Just hang on to me. Jim, get the hatch open."_

_"We've barricaded the entrance above, Catherine. Should give us time."_

_"What about Graham? He just left before. Does anyone know if they got him?"_

_A muffled explosion rocked the structure. Soft cries of panic, young and old, mixed in with the stampeding mad rush to escape._

_"Catherine, take this." A click was heard as a gun was cocked._

_Dan stiffened. "Catherine, what's going on?"_

_"They found us," she said, one arm around his waist. "We got word on the wires. They're heading this way. Somehow, they found out about this bunker."_

_"Catherine!" Ernest was tugging at Dan's arm, trying to get them both to move. "You have to leave!"_

_"Ernest—"_

_"No time. Go. Go!"_

_Dan felt himself being half dragged somewhere. People were talking all around him, footsteps running about._

_Another explosion rocked the bunker. He felt Catherine lurch, banging into the walls. The voices around him grew higher in panic._

_"Oh God, they're already here. Okay, everyone, to your emergency exits. You know what you have to do. Make sure you blow the exit behind—"_

_"Catherine, move it!"_

_"Just hold on to me, Dan. Ernest and I will get you out of here," Catherine whispered, her voice trembling, and Dan clutched her tighter. He felt himself being pushed by several pairs of hands, guiding him somewhere he didn't recognize. _

_A heavy metallic screech made him flinch as someone opened a hatchway on the ground. _

_"Catherine. This leads to the tunnels. Simon Banks is at the other end of this tunnel. He'll be leading you out of here. We'll rendezvous in Seattle and find a way back to the Beta base. Everyone's heading for the other hatchways now. Joe will take a decoy with him so they'll think he's with him."_

_"Jim. Ernest..."_

_Dan could hear a gruff voice talking rapidly, but the chaotic noises outside the bunker, the sounds of rapid gunfire, punctuated with staff weapon blasts made it hard to hear what he was saying._

_"...can hear them coming through. Just go."_

_"Jim..."_

_Dan felt himself being picked up by a pair of strong hands slipping under his arms, an apology muttered to him in his ear, and then unceremoniously dumped down the hatch. Dan barely had time to cry out as he fell hard to the ground below. He could hear Catherine protesting before scrambling down after him. Dan couldn't move, winded by the terrifying drop._

_"Are you okay?" Catherine asked anxiously. "I can't believe he just—"_

_The hatchway slammed shut._

_He felt Catherine stand up, gasping. "Ernest!" Footsteps pounded away from him and up the metal ladder. "Ernest!" He heard flesh pounding metal._

_"What's happening? Catherine?" Dan managed to sit finally and crawl to where he heard his friend. He fumbled, reaching out a hand until he felt the ladder in front of him and used it to pull himself back up. "Catherine? Please, what's going on?"_

_"They blocked the hatchway." Catherine sounded stunned. "Ernest...he said he was going with us. And Jim. They were coming with us." She banged on the hatch cover again. Finally, she cried out, frustrated. "They placed something over it! To hide the exit! I..." She took a deep breath and fell silent. Suddenly, she whispered, "Let's go, Dan."_

_"But the others—"_

_"There's no time. We have to get out of here!" she said, her voice rough with tears. She climbed down the ladder and took him by the elbow. "Concentrate on walking. Banks is down at the end of this tunnel. We have to reach them before—"_

_An explosion rocked the tunnel, and they both fell to their_ _knees._

_"Catherine," Dan whispered. "It came from the bunker..."_

_"I-I know...let's go..."_

_"The others—"_

_"GO!" Catherine hissed into his ear, and he thought he felt a hot tear from her face, splash on his cheek. _

_Muted, Dan placed one hand on the wall and tracked it as they fled. _

_More explosions racked the tunnels, debris dropping down like rain on them. Several times, they were forced to stop and then push on. _

_Suddenly, Catherine froze._

_"Wha—" Dan started to ask when he felt her shove him against a damp wall, an alcove whose frame squashed his arms as they squeezed tightly inside the cramped space. Startled, Dan couldn't speak as he felt her press against him, concealing him with her smaller body, her bony hand covering his mouth, her nails unknowingly digging into his cheek as she tensed._

_Footsteps._

_His breath quickened as he heard footsteps. Not coming from the direction they were heading, but in the direction they'd left._

_Catherine didn't say a word, opting to only squeeze his hand, her other tightly clamping over his mouth to keep him quiet. Dan felt her shoulder shaking with fear, and he doubted he was any calmer. _

_They were getting closer._

_Something dripped down his face, and Dan nearly jumped. He felt her hand push down harder, to a point where he was having difficulty breathing. But she didn't seem to notice as the footsteps stopped. More of whatever it was dripped down his face, and Dan realized they were tears._

_Dan huddled closer, his free hand snaking up to clutch at her arm, his held hand squeezing hers and got another squeeze in response. _

_The tunnels were now ringing with the battle from above. He couldn't hear the footsteps any more but knew they were there._

_There. Again._

_He couldn't breathe, his heart hammering so loud he swore it would betray him. His lip trembled, and Catherine must have felt it under her palm because she squeezed his hand tighter, either to warn him or reassure him he couldn't tell._

_A stray word drifted down to them, and he shuddered, recognizing the Goa'uld syllables. He had insanely prayed they were mistaken, and the footsteps were friend not foe._

_God, he was so scared._

_Catherine huddled closer, and he could feel her breath quickening against his forehead as she covered him with her body, him slouched over, unable to stand straight. She towered over him even though he recalled he was actually taller than her. But he felt much smaller, weaker, useless, cowering in some dank hole with no way of fighting his way out of here. All he could do was curl under Catherine, trying hard not to gasp out loud, listening for any clue of how close their enemy was._

_Footfall._

_The footsteps were walking away._

_Dan felt Catherine lean her forehead against his, weeping openly. Her Egyptian pendant which she'd jokingly once called her good luck charm dangled, striking his throat. Dan shivered, feeling the mildew on his back seeping through to his body._

_She squeezed his fingers again, her other hand finally releasing his mouth. But Dan was too terrified to take a deeper breath. He could hear her heavy breathing, raspy as his own, her necklace swinging left and right as she checked both ends of the tunnels. Finally, when the tunnels returned no echoes of heavy footsteps, stilling to the sound of breezes blowing through them, she sighed softly, her hand holding his, slipped away to go up to her own face. He stood there, in the wet, slimy hole they were hiding in, unable to move even as she stepped down from their alcove._

_Dan felt his throat close up in panic. His brother was going to visit him soon. _

_Was John there now? Caught in the crossfire? Or did they catch him on the way here?_

_"John." Dan croaked and stumbled out of the alcove. Unable to stand properly, he clung to the wet and filthy floor, trying to get up. He'd crawl if he had to if it was the only way to get back._

_"What are you doing?" Catherine grabbed him, and Dan was appalled to realize she was stronger. She lifted him with little effort, and he clung to her shoulders desperately._

_"John...he was going to come today...get Simmons' report and then head back to Sammy...Catherine—"_

_"He's not there. Dan, there's no one left there. Please, listen to me. You can't stay here. We have to go. They're waiting for us." Catherine pulled his hands away from her and held onto one of them tightly. _

_For some reason, Dan heard it before she did. A soft footfall, metal striking concrete, too small to detect, but it was a roar in his ears._

_"Catherine!"_

_Fire surrounded him._

_It was the only way to describe it._

_Heat, flames, hot bolts of energy screamed past him, and he felt Catherine torn from his side, her clawlike grip ripped from his forearm. Dan stumbled, his support lost and fell to the ground._

_"Catherine!" He could hear her rasping a few feet away._

_"D-dan...go...run..."_

_He scrambled, crawling to where he heard the thin voice and heard a click. He flinched as he felt more than heard five shots fired rapidly from Catherine's gun. Behind him, he could hear the bullets land on metal, only one grunt from the enemy as they were struck down._

_"Go...g-go..."_

_Dan bumped into her hand, waving at him to leave, and he tugged her up. She barely moved, her weight only pulling him back down. Desperate, Dan willed his knees to lock and rise, yanking her arm with him as he did. "Catherine. God...get up. Please..."_

_"Chel to yut!"_

_Something struck him behind the knees, and he staggered towards the ground, felt Catherine's limp arm slip from his grasp, her fingers sliding away from him as they both fell. He heard a whisper of his name before he felt someone standing over him. Gasping, wheezing, he vaguely heard more shots and the looming presence he felt was gone. But then, he heard half a dozen whines of alien weapons in response._

_More fire and heat. Dan yelled out as he heard Catherine's garbled cry before the staff weapons muffled the rest. He screamed as well, screamed for them to stop, for someone to help them, but the only answer he got was a rough arm wrapping around his chest, hauling him up._

_"Shen chu mak re'klya," one commented, a hand squeezing his face to turn it to the side, and threw him back down with a snort of disgust._

_"No!" Dan crawled, hands and knees, towards where she was. He reached out a shaky hand. "Catherine." He found her shoulders and shook them. His other hand found the necklace on her chest, the pendant charred and melted into a misshapen lump, and used that as a line to guide him up to her face to check, feeling his way up her shoulders, her throat. "Are you alright?" His hands went higher up along her body to tap her on the cheek and wake her._

_He found nothing._

_"No!"_

_Deep, alien laughter wafted around him as Dan screamed. He spun around and tried to hit them, but on his knees, all he could get was their boots before they kicked him away. He could feel them surrounding him. _

_No!_

_He was never, ever going back!_

_Dan twisted away from large hands. Fumbling, he somehow found the gun, the hand that held it gone, and waved it around wildly. _

_All he heard was laughter._

_"I w-won't let you take me back there..." Dan whispered. He held the gun between both hands, waiting just a second longer, hoping to hear a friendly voice coming towards him. But there was nothing. He was alone._

_Dan tightened his grip on the gun. He heard the guards stop laughing, perhaps sensing his determination._

_Dan drew the gun to the bottom of his chin and pulled the trigger before the guards could stop him._

_Click._

_"No..." Dan whispered, the gun falling from his hands. The laughter was louder now as he felt someone grab him roughly by the arm, yanking him up. _

_"Cho no kely, re'klya."_

_Wear the blood of a slave._

_Dan heard the phrase spat at him. He felt a guard brush past him, talking to the others before something moist and sticky was rubbed over his face like war paint, the guards laughing even louder than before. He cried out as he realized it was blood, the foul stench of death on him like a mask. He tried to wipe it off with his bound hands, kicking the guard carrying him. _

_"Krey tam ok!" A fist slammed into his temples, igniting the devices once more and everything exploded in pain. He felt himself sag, spent as they took him away from Catherine's body and the end of the tunnel where help was waiting._

Dan whipped up his hands, catching someone on the jaw, felt whatever it was on his legs twist tighter, binding him. He felt the hands on him pull back as he kicked out violently and he stumbled, trying to get out of the cell, perhaps find some way to escape or at least end this torment once and for all.

He fell off the bed.

"Jesus, Dan!" Hands were around him again, this time slipping under his knees and back. Dan felt himself being lifted, people talking around him as he was carried back.

A bed. It was a bed.

He wasn't back there. Not with Ra. Not with Hathor. Not with Catherine.

Dan raged, the nightmare spinning in his head in a fury of sound, whirling out of his control, flooding like a dam, no longer willing to stay back in the recesses of his mind. He felt someone sit him up and hold tight, and for a brief moment, Dan didn't give a shit about how strong he needed to be or how okay he needed to look and just clung to the offered salvation, his face pressed into the steady beat of the person's heart as it throbbed in their neck. A hand rubbed his back up and down, and Dan shivered.

"It's okay. Sh...It was just a bad dream. It's okay..."

It was a dream. A goddamn nightmare he hadn't seen but only heard. A dream he couldn't wake up from. He clutched the arm for a moment longer before he felt a round object gently pressed into his hands.

Catherine's pendant.

Dan bent over it, shuddering, squeezing it in his grasp. He felt someone sitting down next to him.

"Dan...Hey..." Another hand went up and down his arm, ironing out the last of the trembling. "It's okay. No one's here to hurt you. It's just me."

John.

Stiffening, Dan tried to move away, wondering how he could have been so foolish as to go straight to his brother as usual to get rid of the bad dreams. He shrugged away the hand and heard John sigh.

"Can you give me a few minutes?" his brother asked, directing the question to someone over Dan's head.

Faint voices coming in and out could be heard before a door clicked shut, blocking them out. Dan took no notice as he felt the round medallion, the cut lines in metal into the shape he knew was Horus' eye.

Ra's key.

They were almost there. Ra's key. The one Catherine wore around her neck, an artifact she brazenly claimed for her own when she was a child. Her father, Doctor Langford yielding to the whims of his beloved daughter, unknowingly granting her the one item that could open the gates to a demon's domain. The key only royal gods wore, the one she called her lucky charm.

Hot tears trickled down his face, and he pressed the item to his cheek. He tried so hard not to think about it. All those people, slaughtered, killed just because they wanted to be free, who'd kept him within their circle to ensure he was, too. He remembered being dragged back to the bunker, roused awake and forced to hear every last scream of the prisoners. Every last one of them. He would carry their screams with him until the day he die.

"Hey." John shook his shoulder, trying to get him to look up, but Dan couldn't. He couldn't let John see. He tried to take deep breaths, but each tight clench of his chest failed him and reminded him how much had been lost.

Daniel Jackson and Jack O'Neill trapped in his world and him slipping away in theirs, Dan suddenly realized how unfair this was. How could fate's scales gave him a family but tore his world apart in exchange? Daniel had the opposite. He was alone, but his world was intact. Who had the better deal?

Dan would give anything to ensure every last person he knew was okay.

"Dan," John murmured in dismay, arm slipping over his shoulders, hesitant in offering his comfort yet unable to turn away.

Yes. Dan would give anything to ensure every person. Every last person.

Dan jerked away from John's protection. He could hear his brother's sharp intake of breath.

"W-what happened?" Dan croaked, trying to distract John from asking him anything.

"Do you remember? General Hammond said Catherine was alive in this reality after you told him about the key. He said you wanted to see her, but he told you no. You got all upset and..." John audibly swallowed. "Then you passed out. God, Dan, you scared the shit out of me. I saw Teal'c coming through that Stargate, and I knew something was wrong. And when I got here..." John couldn't finish.

"H-how long was I out?"

"Two hours." John's voice cracked, showing just how long those two hours had been.

Dan lifted the locket. "Then this—"

"General Hammond called her over, asking if we could _borrow_ this for a while."

Sitting up straight, Dan leaned towards where his voice was. "Is she—-"

"No. She already left. Didn't seem too happy to part with her stuff from what I heard."

Slumping, Dan sat on the bed.

"We can't see her, Dan."

Dan said nothing, fingers running around the thick, segmented chain that ran through a small loop on the locket. He traced the details of the eye with a fingernail.

"We can't, Dan. How would we explain to her who we are?" John shuffled closer, the bed creaking as he did. "What would have you said to her? Huh? What were you thinking?"

"I just wanted to hear her voice and know she was okay," Dan whispered. His palm closed over the locket in a fist.

"Dan—"

He didn't let John finish. "I just wanted to hear her voice. I wanted to know she was alive somewhere. So many..." Dan bowed his head. "So many..."

John touched Dan's shoulder. This time, his younger brother didn't turn away. "She's alive here, Dan. But it doesn't do us any good."

"It does to me. She shouldn't have died."

"I know."

"We were running. We were so close. She said they were waiting for us at the end of the tunnel. If I'd run faster. If only I'd—"

John couldn't say anything. He remembered going into the bunker, finding the bodies, then finding hers down in the tunnels. He picked up what was left and buried the pieces in the grove of trees where her house once stood and made sure Ernest was right beside her. John rubbed the shoulder his hand was on, slow circles going clockwise, allowing the action to distract him from the memories of shoveling loads and loads of dirt alongside his comrades, burying friends in a small lot with nothing but a wedge of stone to mark the place. John clenched his eyes shut, telling himself to keep helping Dan. He was still alive, safe in this world. He kneaded the thin shoulder, the bone felt through layers of clothing, too thin to hide it well, even with all the clothing.

Dan didn't turn away this time. He, in fact, leaned towards John. Encouraged, John kept at it, speaking to him softly.

"There was nothing you could have done, Dan. Nothing. It wasn't your fault."

"Catherine...Ernest..." Dan released the locket, letting it fall to the carpet below. He could hear John reaching down to pick it up. He covered his face and took a shuddering breath. "And Frank...God...why..._why_?"

"Dan." John didn't know what to do. Something was screaming inside John, telling him something was wrong. Way wrong.

"They didn't have to die...not like that...not for me..."

"Dan, they died because of those bastards; they died to save you, but you weren't the one who pulled the trigger. I don't want to sound melodramatic, but you're the only one left who can break their secrets. We have no one. No one."

"The underground—"

"No scholars, Dan. Lord knows I've checked. Anyone who knew how to speak anything similar, Arabic, Latin, Greek...I even looked for those who spoke French and Spanish, for crying out loud."

"A F-french Goa'uld?" Dan weakly repeated, a sad quirk of his mouth revealed when he lifted his head.

John was heartened to hear him joke and punched him lightly. "Hey, I said I checked everything. Left no stone unturned." He sobered. "But there was no one. At least, none who would come forward."

"They didn't want to become this." Gesturing towards his head, long bangs concealing the silver discs as usual, Dan leaned back, pressed against the wall. "Not like me. Not a _re'klya_."

"Just didn't have the guts," John said bitterly. "Left you alone to aid the rebels. Bunch of cowards."

"People were scared."

"Yeah. Sure. Scared…like everyone else wasn't?"

Dan shook his head, rubbing his forehead wearily.

John took a chance and grabbed both of Dan's hands. He squeezed them gently sandwiched in his. "Dan...They were your friends. Not just comrades. They wouldn't want anything to happen to you nor would I. God, if anything happens to you, it will just kill me."

Dan jerked back, yanking his hands away. "Don't say that."

"I'm your brother, Dan. Family. I give a shit about anything that concerns you or anyone in our family."

"You should be looking for them. You should be worrying about beating Ra."

"Trust me, that's utmost on my mind, Dan. But it doesn't mean I'll stop worrying over you."

Dan trembled; he waved his hands wildly. "No. You don't mean...I don't want it!"

"What?"

"This? Everything! You have to find a way to beat him somehow! You can't be here!"

Alarmed, John reached forward but had his hands slapped away.

"Dan!"

"I don't want you here!" Dan panicked, feeling the bedpost digging against his back. "L-leave me alone!"

The door opened, and Frasier could be heard running over. "What's going on?"

Dan grabbed her sleeve. She gasped as she was yanked closer. "I don't want him here! Make him leave."

"Doctor O'Neill—"

"No, no! I don't want him here. Tell him to get out."

"Captain. He's getting upset. Maybe you should go."

"Like hell, I will! I want to know what's going on!"

Dan felt his heart hammering faster and faster, panic drowning his throat.

"Go! Get out!" Dan babbled.

John went around Frasier, both hands on his brother's shoulders. Wide blank eyes were huge, mouth partly open in fright. "Dan? What the hell is going on with you?" He shook him, a bit more roughly than he should have. Dan started, hands up to defend himself.

"Captain! I'm going to have to insist."

"I'm not leaving this room until I know what's going on!"

Dan moaned. No. He couldn't let John stay. John couldn't be here to watch him go. John needed to leave. "Go. _Please_."

Voice a low hiss, the worry was evident in John's tone. "I'm not going anywhere, Dan. You can hate me all you want, but I'm staying. Let me help you. Please. For God's sake, don't push me away!"

_Tell him._

A little voice, a miniature of himself, weak and small, was pleading with him.

_Tell him. _

_Tell John and maybe the pain will go away. _

He wanted to. God he wanted to tell his brother everything, about the darkness he feared, about the voices sneering at him in his dreams, the pain that kept growing and growing to a point where even Doctor Frasier's morphine was useless. He wanted to tell him everything.

The bed rocked as John moved closer, hands moving down to his forearms. "Danny. Please..."

Dan shuddered, his head falling forward to hit John's chest. His own hands shakily went up to John's shoulders. It would be so easy to just let it all out and hear John say again how they'd find a cure, the pain would go away like it always did when he was a child. Just open his mouth and—

Rough texture of gauze wrapped around John's upper left shoulder snagged at his fingers, and Dan's head shot up. He jerked back.

Frasier, at the same time, noticed the wound herself. She frowned at the sight of the torn sleeve. "Captain O'Neill?"

"Got a little close to the staff weapon," John told her curtly, wondering why Dan shrank back. "It's okay. One of your medics checked it out."

A little close.

Dan took a shuddering breath. He was so close to telling him everything. How could he? He rubbed his fingers together, remembering how the weave of the gauze felt thick under his hands, the wound obviously serious enough to warrant treatment. And he knew why John wasn't paying attention to what he was doing.

He was looking over his shoulder for Dan.

_What will happen when he no longer finds me behind him?_

"Dan?" Seeing the young scholar shiver, Janet leaned forward, touching him, bracing him as she felt his arm quiver like a plucked bow.

"Get out."

Janet started. She looked over to John and bit her lip. She started to rise when Dan spoke up again.

"Not you. Him."

Now John stared at Dan. "What?"

"Please. I'm begging you. Leave me alone." Dan shoved as hard as he could. John was too shocked to hold on, and his hands dropped to his sides.

"Dan—"

"Go. Just go away. I don't want you here. You don't know what you're doing to me by being here. Please. Please, just GO!"

Janet murmured Dan's name, rubbing his arm. She saw a shadow move out of the corner of her left eye, and she turned. John stood there, staring at Dan, mouth partly open, eyes filled with a mixture of grief, confusion and dismay that blanched them to almost gray. She sat there, fully aware of the stunned silence, John's bewilderment, and Dan's shivering. She wet her lips. She'd given her word, but…She refused to believe that this man, this man who wore her friend's face, would want to be alone in his last hours.

When Dan didn't hear anything, he grabbed Janet's arm, his voice cracking. "Is he gone yet? Did he leave?" He shook her arm, lower lip quivering as if afraid.

John made a choking sound, and Dan stilled. The younger O'Neill turned his head, away from John, not saying another word. Janet gazed down at him, dismayed. She opened her mouth, about to say something, to make John understand when she felt Dan's hands tighten like claws around her wrist, pleading with her to stay silent.

She squeezed his forearm in response, and the grip relaxed.

Click.

When she looked up, John was gone, the door swinging behind him. Janet swiveled back to Dan.

"You knew he was still standing there," she accused. His profile was shrouded in the darkness the lamps couldn't reach.

Dan shook his head, mute.

"Why? Why didn't you tell him?"

"I don't want the last thing he sees of me to be..." Dan stopped. He pulled away from Janet and rubbed his face, ragged breaths muffled behind his hand. "I've heard how they go...I thought I had more time and..."

"We can still attempt a lot of things. There's so much we might do and—"

"I don't have that long!"

Janet stopped.

Slumped over the bed, Dan hid his face within the crook of his arm, slouched above the pile of blankets shoved up into the corner of the bed. "I have to get back to work."

"You need rest."

"What I need is a goddamn miracle!"

Once more, Janet fell silent.

Shaking his head, running the back of his hand across his eyes, Dan sat up. "No more rest. No more asking me to tell him. No more. Please. Let me do what I have to before it's too late." He tilted his head up towards her and even though he didn't say it out loud, she heard it anyway.

_"You owe me."_

She closed her eyes, taking solace in the temporary darkness to shy away from the sight of Dan, his weakness and desperation gone for one short moment. She then opened her eyes again, squeezing his arm.

"Come on. Let me help you back there."

"Thank you," he croaked and shakily got up. He didn't say anything else, even when he felt the sympathy from the passing soldiers boring through him as he walked down the hallway, aided by her arm. He concentrated on walking, one foot at a time, and on trying to forget the sound of John's voice, wordless, incoherent before he finally left him alone.

Just like he wanted.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Sitting in the room, listening to Hansen talk to Hammond, their familiar voices rattling his nerves, Daniel couldn't help but shiver along with the sub.

He could hear snatches of words, about needing more food supplies, names of cities tossed in as possible places to check, plans of how they were going to reach from one place to the other by means of subs, sneaking into Goa'uld bases to use teleport rings and so forth.

What kind of life was that? Scrounging around for every scrap of metal, food, and clothing they could find. What kind of battle were they in where victory stood so far away that survival was their first and foremost goal?

"...maybe recruit some of the people hiding out in Panama...Banks got some from Tacoma near the shipping docks...could use someone in the transportation centers...maybe Ellison…advantage..."

Daniel clenched his fists. Sitting in the office as they talked, the latest report had come in before they could ask him anything. General Hammond and Hansen were engrossed in a conversation already, forgetting he was there.

He didn't mind, actually.

Daniel was still trying to sort out everything, fragmented memories that only came with a jolt of phantom pain to remind him how it felt. He absently rubbed his palms on his thighs, feeling the gold wire around his wrist scrape along his pants as he went and wondered when Jack would return. Sitting in the dark, listening to voices that were no longer familiar to him, Daniel felt very lost, made helpless by the fact he couldn't see. He missed having a familiar voice out there in the murk, a reassuring anchor to reality, to sanity.

He wondered if his counterpart felt the same.

Another testament to his strength.

Dan was blind, yet he was able to decipher, encode, and translate whatever he could.

Daniel could barely feel the symbols on the Stargate without Jack's guiding hand.

Dan was able to wait it out alone in the sub, his brother off God knew where.

Daniel was trying to figure out how long ago Jack left.

Dan was able to leave the car back then.

Daniel...

He sat up straighter, forcing his shoulders back, making sure his mind didn't wander off to places it shouldn't. He should be working on his memory. Something deep inside was telling him to figure it out.

_"It is good to see you again, our Beloved."_

"Stop it," Daniel muttered to himself.

"...Kawalsky reported in before. They found some interesting items. Simmons is going to contact us again later..." Sammy was saying.

He knew Frasier was Hathor in this reality. He knew well beforehand, before he even stepped foot through the Stargate, but for some reason, seeing her face adorned with gold, her gentle smile of reassurance gone, replaced with the bone-chilling smirk of Hathor, Daniel was rocked to the core. She looked so different, yet the same...

Pain, pain, pain. The electrifying jolt of the _re'klya_ seared through his temples once more. Only a memory of it though. Daniel lucked out, and they were removed before it was too late. He gingerly felt the wounds on one side of his head before dropping his hand hastily. He couldn't see the whole time, but he wondered if Jack held the same look of remorse on his face he'd seen lurking behind John O'Neill's eyes. Judging by the subdued tone Jack had been speaking to him with, Daniel pretty much thought so.

The sub shivered once underneath the continuing hum of the engines. For some reason, every so often, the sub was trembling more, then steadying. He wondered if it would be rude of him to ask them why. But judging by the serious discussion they were having, about stealing more naquada ore just to run the subs, he suspected the engines were doing this more and more so he decided not to ask.

The sub again shuddered once more. Daniel found himself doing the same.

_"...told us where our Beloved was hidden...we would reward...if he gives us the base."_

_"He will not tell you..."_

_"...Be ready for me..."_

_"...Che mar, he comes..."_

Something.

There was something he was missing. An important piece to a puzzle he had yet to determine what it looked like.

"Doctor Jackson?"

"S-sorry," Daniel murmured, shaking his head, berating himself. Turning towards her and the general, he offered a weak smile. "What was your question?"

Hammond sounded apologetic as he sat down on a chair beside Daniel. "We wanted to ask you a few questions about—" The archeologist could hear someone else entering

"Harry? Where have you been?"

"Out walking, listening to their reports sent back through the damn Stargate. But froze my ass. Thought maybe I'd sit with you guys instead. Jacob's taken over my watch." Maybourne's light voice floated around Daniel. He shifted nervously. "Doctor Jackson? How are you feeling?"

"Fine," he muttered, sensing Maybourne sitting on his left. Framed by two generals, Daniel swallowed. "What was your question?"

Hansen spoke up from somewhere in the back. "Ra."

"Oh. What do you want to know?"

"How about when you first encountered him?" Maybourne jumped in with the beginning question. "From what the colonel briefly mentioned during his debriefing with Commander Hansen, it was during the discovery of how to make the Stargate work."

"That's correct." Daniel folded his hands together, wishing the stool had a back he could rest against. "He was returning to Abydos while we were there. We went through to explore and found a displaced race of slaves who had originated from our planet thousands of years ago." He frowned as the sub shuddered again, more pronounced. Its trembling went up his legs and added to the slowly growing headache building behind his eyes. He clenched then unclenched his hands, feeling small cramps already starting to mimic the sub's vibrations.

"Doctor Jackson?"

"Sorry...where was I? Oh yes, he came and landed on top of the Stargate chamber and captured most of the team who were there waiting for us."

"Us?" Hansen interrupted.

"Uh...me, Jack, and Captain Kawalsky."

"So you've known each other since this project?" Hammond mused out loud. "You know, I'm still trying to swallow this alternate reality thing."

Maybourne retorted. "Swallow? I'm still trying to take bite size nibbles!"

"We're telling the truth," Daniel hastily said. "We came to help. We really did—"

"He didn't say he didn't believe you, Doctor Jackson." The commander walked over and sat down in front of him, her stool making a scraping sound as she did. A hand on his knee, she briefly squeezed it before pulling away abruptly. "He just said it was a bit fantastic to hear."

"Trust us. We've encountered a lot of strange things. This is certainty nothing new to us," Maybourne assured Daniel.

Hammond gave a short laugh. "Yes, like seeing General Maybourne smile."

Maybourne sighed aloud, his deep chuckle making Daniel turn towards him in surprise. "You work for NID for two lousy months before transferring and people think you're the scum of the galaxy!"

"Oh no, Harry," Hammond chuckled. "Ra has that spot now."

"He can have it. Doctor Jackson, is something wrong?"

Daniel shook his head. "I just...it's very odd to be here...hearing..." He shrugged helplessly. "Some things are so different here. I never would have thought Colonel Maybourne—"

"Colonel?" Maybourne was heard sitting up. In an indignant voice, he demanded, "I was a _colonel_ over there?"

"I guess someone didn't appreciate your talents," Hammond joked lightly. He sobered, directing his attention back to Daniel. "I can understand, Doctor Jackson. I'm still pinching myself to see if this isn't all just a weird dream."

"Hell, George, I've been pinching myself since day one of this damn war," Maybourne muttered.

Hansen tried to get them back on track. "How did you get rid of Ra?"

Daniel gave a small smile. "As Jack would say...we blew him up in little pieces." He rubbed a hand up and down his arm, wishing the goosebumps would go away, taking the shivering with them. "He sent a nuclear bomb through Ra's own transport rings when he was orbiting above Abydos, and it...blew up."

"Nice," Hammond commented.

"Uh...yes...Ra was gone, and the people of Abydos were free, but a few years ago...Apophis came through our Stargate and grabbed one of the soldiers guarding it at the time and the rest," Daniel shrugged, "is history."

"Now these Asgards Commander Hansen was telling us..." Maybourne hesitated. "Don't mean to sound ungrateful or anything, but do we really need more aliens running around our planet?"

Daniel held out his hands to them. "They're harmless; I can assure you. They've helped us in many spots and helped out another reality. They were in a similar situation as you are now...only they'd just been invaded." He dropped his hands, uncomfortable with the silence that hung over the room.

"Well." Hammond said finally. "Better late than never, I guess."

Daniel nodded, wishing he could sound more convincing. The usual words he somehow always found were out of reach. Daniel Jackson was at a loss for words.

Daniel winced, his fingers going up to his forehead.

"Doctor Jackson?" A hand touched his knee tentatively. General Hammond leaned closer, concerned. "Is everything alright?"

"Back on the ship..." Daniel hissed softly under his breath. His head was pounding again. "I was awake at some point after they put the...these things in me...thought I heard them talking about."

Maybourne leaned towards him as well. "About what?"

"I'm trying to remember, but I..." Daniel breathed out sharply, frustrated as another vibration shook under his feet. "God, doesn't that bother you?"

Hammond and Maybourne looked at each other, baffled. Daniel sat there, head in his hands, rocking slightly at the migraine building behind his eyes. Hammond cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Doctor Jackson. What are you talking about?"

"T-that constant shaking this boat is making." Waving his hand towards the outside, Daniel flinched as the next tremor shot through his legs and straight to his head. "God...it's getting worse and worse."

"What is?" Hansen stooped down to his level. She gripped his flailing hand, keeping it down and still. "Doctor Jackson...Daniel...What is getting worse? Is it your head? The cramps?"

"No...The subs...The engines...they keep...I don't know...shaking!"

"Engines tend to shake a bit, but the nuclear subs are relatively quiet." Hansen was puzzled. "Maybe you're just overly sensitive to the vibrations because of your—"

"No, no, no. Sometimes it's okay, but then like before, they spike up—" Daniel lifted his head, mouth open. "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

Mystified, the three soldiers exchanged looks. Hansen placed both hands on his knees, stunned to feel them shaking under her palms and even more surprised to find herself greatly bothered by it. "No, we really don't."

Daniel tilted his head, frowning to himself. "Maybe I was just..." No. He wasn't imagining it. He remembered the added tremor, rattling his bones briefly before it faded.

Maybourne decided to humor the archeologist. "Can you describe it?" He shrugged at the others' looks.

"It was sort of like the engines in Dan's room, humming continuously, but," Daniel dropped his head. "I don't know...like a tremor, but a short one. I thought maybe it was a power surge or something."

Hammond gazed up at Hansen. She shrugged. "From what Machello's notes said, the naquada reactors and shields activate the moment the Stargate powers up. They would dampen any vibrations to nil."

"That's it."

The three soldiers turned back to Daniel.

"A Stargate. I felt it shake like when a Stargate comes on, like when our gate activates, before even the first chevron comes up, there is always a tremor that goes through the base. We have something that absorbs the vibrations, but something still goes through."

"Well, we did have the Stargate powered before to send the team through, and it came back up a few minutes ago when Simmons radioed in a progress report." Maybourne shrugged. "Maybe that's it."

Daniel chewed his lower lip. "No. I felt it a few times."

"Are you sure?" Hansen insisted. "I mean, no offense, but you're not exactly a tuning fork, Doctor Jackson. And you weren't exactly walking on sea legs either."

Daniel nodded briskly. "I'm sure. When you're sitting in a room in the dark, a change in tone, pitch or intensity is noticeable."

Staring at the top of his head, Hansen walked over to the door, scanning the hallway until she spotted Siler. "Sergeant! Were you guys working on the engines before on the Miro?"

The engineer looked puzzled, but nodded as he shouted back down from his position by the engines. "Yes, sir! Just after the recon team went through."

"Well there you go!" Maybourne threw up his hands with a grin. "They were tinkering with the engines, and you probably felt the sub reacting to it, Doctor Jackson. Although I'm pretty amazed you were able to feel the difference, but I suppose without your sight to rely on—"

"No." Daniel sat up higher. Maybourne fell silent. "No. I felt it here too. While we were talking. Twice in fact."

"Siler!" Hansen shouted back down the hallway. The irritated engineer popped his head back out again. "How about these engines? The Cleveland?"

"No, sir!" Siler called back. "Graham already did a check up when he was fixing some sort of problem in the communications room before he left!"

Hansen turned worriedly to her COs.

"I know where I felt this before." Daniel's hands stilled, his head turned towards Sammy. "Awhile back, Jack and Sam—the Sam I know in my reality, were separated from us mid-transit through the wormhole. We didn't know where they were. But during one night, I was in the briefing room trying to map out their possible locations when I felt a tremor." He waved a hand towards the floor below him. "This tremor."

"What are you trying to say?" Hammond asked in a serious voice, listening with a growing feeling of dread in his gut.

"Turns out Sam was dialing for home, where I was from her Stargate where they were. Only..." Daniel stilled, his breath caught as he realized what this meant. "The Stargate she was using was already on Earth. This Stargate...in Antarctica."

"Commander?" Maybourne whipped his head around sharply to her.

Hansen folded her arms as she shook her head. "I don't think so, Doctor Jackson. This is the only Stargate left on Earth."

Hammond made a face. "The battleships' gates?"

"Have their own seven symbols. The ones down on Earth are teleport rings that bounce off their Stargate. The only Stargate they had on Earth was the one they moved down in Peru, and that was blown up by the Tok'ra two and a half years ago. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to risk using our Stargate when there's a chance we might end up on their end instead." Sammy rubbed at her scar thoughtfully. "The Goa'ulds think they have no more Stargates for this planet. They haven't bothered dialing this address since losing the Peru one. It must be something else, Doctor Jackson."

Daniel felt his heart pounding. No. He knew he wasn't mistaken. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure. Headache forgotten, he clenched his fists. "There is one Stargate they know of." He lifted his chin, raising his voice. "Cheyenne."

"Destroyed, Doctor Jackson." General Hammond sighed, remembering. "Commander Hansen's husband brought up the self-destruct codes to blow a megaton of explosives over the mountain. It's destroyed. Buried under miles of rock."

"Buried, but not destroyed," Daniel insisted. "From what I learned of the Stargate, short of a nuclear bomb, the Stargate can't be destroyed. The explosives would have only buried it under rock and rubble. The ancient Egyptians did the same thing to seal themselves off from Ra, and we were able to uncover it in the 1920s. They might have done the same thing!"

"What are you trying to say?" Sammy interrupted. "That the Goa'ulds have uncovered the Stargate? Why haven't they used it yet then?"

"They will...once they find this one."

Hansen frowned. She didn't like what she was hearing. Not one bit. "Our planet is one big naquada pit with all the shit they piled here. They wouldn't be able to sense this Stargate, and when we turn it on, we use the shields to cover its energy reading anyway."

"They won't need to rely on the naquada to sense the gate." Daniel shakily stood. "They'll be doing what we did to find Jack and Sam." He reached out, catching Sammy's hand. He desperately grasped her fingers, trying to make her see his point. "All they have to do is keep dialing this address, the same address they're on."

"Excuse me, but what the hell is that going to do?" Maybourne cut in. "They can't use it to go to our Stargate."

"They resonate," whispered Daniel. "The two Stargates would resonate."

"Shit." Sammy pulled her hand away. "It'll be like dialing your own phone number."

Daniel gave a strangled laugh. "Funny...that's how I explained it to another friend of mine as well."

"Sammy—" Maybourne trailed off. "I'm a little lost here. What the hell are you talking about?"

Daniel jumped in, his words hurried as the thought of the Goa'ulds searching for them sent the hairs on the back of his neck rising in alarm. "They'll get a busy signal, and the tremors are a result of that. All they need to do is track the seismic activity and—"

"Find this base," Hammond finished grimly.

Maybourne's mouth dropped open. "Shit."

Hansen stiffened, staring at her COs. "Sirs."

"Do it. Gather everyone, get the symbols for any planet we can meet up on. Half move the subs, the others to the refugee planet," Hammond ordered.

"I think we should pull out the Giza, sirs. We're gonna need some fast dialing if they are heading this way."

Daniel tensed. It was like back in the other reality again, the alarms screaming as the technicians reported a large pyramid shape ship approaching.

"Doctor Jackson." Maybourne clapped a hand on his shoulder. Daniel jumped. "We'd better get you back to your room. You stay put there. Once we start evacuating, I need to know where you are. Better if you stay in one place where I can find you."

"You...you believe me then?" Daniel asked faintly, his head spinning. Already, he could hear soldiers outside hurrying their pace under Hansen's sharp, ringing voice.

General Hammond overheard the question. "Doctor, we can't afford not to believe you."

Daniel swallowed, nodding.


	31. Chapter 30

**CHAPTER THIRTY**

Jack heard the Stargate hum as the third chevron was locked. Turning his head, stopping from his collecting the round globe thingies as he called them, to see Simmons dialing up the next symbol. Jack frowned.

"What's he doing?" Jack murmured to Kawalsky, nodding towards the Stargate.

The captain gave the young soldier a quick check before grunting. "Making a report back to base. We gotta radio in every few hours or so. We're already overdue for the second report, I think."

Jack watched Simmons pull out a Tok'ra communications globe and shrugged. They relied on their MALP probes to send radio transmissions.

The Stargate suddenly flashed, the wormhole gone, and Simmons stepped away. "Done," he announced as he tucked in the globe back into his pockets.

"What did you tell them?" Kawalsky asked.

Simmons looked annoyed as he shot back, "The usual!"

"Geez, take another bite of my head, will you?" Kawalsky groused. He shrugged over to Jolinar, who looked up in surprise. Glancing back towards Jack, the captain shook his head.

Jack studied Simmons' slouched back for a moment with a small frown. The kid was a virtual walking multiple personality. Happy the first minute, pain in the ass the next. More and more, he missed his own base where Simmons was just a shy soldier who for some reason turned red every time Carter went by him. Jack was beginning to wonder at that point if the kid had a crush on her.

_Nah._

"Just a bit more and we can return home," Jolinar reported as she got up. Shaking her hair out, dark waves flapping left and right before draping over her shoulders, Jolinar walked over to the two men. She smiled softly, extending her canteen to them.

Jack muttered "Thanks" as he took the canteen and guzzled the stale water. It had a faint aftertaste like it had been frozen, and he realized it was ice, probably from the cavern the base was hid in. He handed it back to her, managing not to grimace. And he thought their treated water tasted weird.

"I have found some shock grenades," Jolinar reported, waving towards her bag. "Not a lot. But they would prove to be useful in an important battle."

Jack nodded, wincing as he recalled his lovely introduction to the shock grenade. It felt like lightning fried his brains, then when he came to—he was blind as a bat.

At the mention of blind, Jack's jaw clenched, wondering if Daniel was still trying to see, maybe pulling off the bandanna over his eyes to try and force his sight to return faster.

_He'd better not._

"He's okay, you know."

Turning to Kawalsky, he saw the captain smiling understandably at him.

"The commander'll watch over him."

Jack snorted. "Sure. I could tell she was the real nurturing type." He glanced over to Simmons, who was still hanging around the DHD. "Should have asked him to watch him instead."

"Look, like I said before. She talks tough, but she's okay. Really."

Jack's jaw clenched. "Right," he grated out. "Let's just finish this up and get back, okay?" The sooner they finished, the sooner they could return and start figuring out how to get back to their reality. Jack ignored the looks Kawalsky and Jolinar exchanged as he shoved more stuff in his pack.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Running to the bridge, Sammy saw her men heading off in all directions. The quiet pace from before had all but vanished as the word spread that they might have been compromised. Perched on top of the Cleveland's bridge, she said nothing to the other watcher standing behind her.

"You sure about this?" Jacob Carter asked, his eyes darting left and right as he watched the soldiers drag out the Giza in front of the Stargate. He rubbed his hands together, bundled only in a flightsuit and a borrowed jacket. He'd changed out of his Tok'ra wear after getting too many looks from the other soldiers.

"Not too close!" Hansen hollered down below before looking over her shoulder briefly. She turned back towards the activity below and grunted. "No. But we're not taking any chances, either."

"I'm going to be evacuating the subs and taking the Franklin down to San Francisco and from there, rendezvous in Denver as we had planned originally for Ra." Jacob murmured. He gazed at the U.S.S Franklin swaying serenely next to the Cleveland. "Miro and Cleveland got the nuclear reactors and the naquada reactors installed together. We're thinking a feedback loop between the engines to blow this Stargate so they can't have it."

"We've all talked before about the possibility of abandoning this base when we made our contingency plans. We leave, we meet up at Denver and wait for Ra. Nothing's changed," Hansen replied tightly, her breath coming out in short, angry puffs of vapor. "I don't need a review."

"Sam—"

"Shouldn't you be readying to shove off?"

"I just want to talk to you for a second—"

"I don't have the time to—"

"Then make the time!"

Jacob's voice rang throughout the cave, stopping some soldiers in their tracks below. At Hansen's glare though, they hurried along like worker ants, pretending they hadn't heard a thing.

The former general grabbed Hansen by the arm. "Look. Sam. I want to think we can settle things between us before we go off on our different roads. God knows if we'll all come out of this intact. I would like to think I can say a decent goodbye to the only family I have left!"

Sammy looked down at his hand squeezing her arm. "Let go of my arm," she said in a dangerous voice.

"No. Not until you hear me out!" Jacob shook her arm a little. "Samantha...Sammy...I know you still don't believe me, but I am your father. Nothing's changed."

Hansen coolly scanned him up and down.

Jacob grinned crookedly. "Okay...not much. I'm still Jacob Carter, the guy you used to make paper planes for."

Hansen relaxed a bit. She stopped trying to pull her arm back; a sad smile twitched the corner of her mouth. "Can't believe you took every one of them to put up."

"Hey, you made them. Why wouldn't I want to show them off?"

The commander darkened. "No. I made them for my father. For Jacob Carter. Not for _Selmac_," she forced out heatedly.

"I know it's hard for you to believe, but surely after the past year of the alliance between the Tok'ra and you—"

The commander stilled, her gaze boring down on him. "That's where you're wrong. You made an alliance with the world leaders. Not with me."

"God damn it! Can't you sense that it's me? The way I talk, the things I know."

Hansen snorted. "The Goa'ulds gain access to their victims' knowledge. You're telling me nothing that could trick me into—"

"Sammy—"

"Don't call me that!"

The former general let her go, throwing up his arms. "Then what am I supposed to call you? You're my daughter, damn it!"

She stood there, stoic, staring at him.

Hands gesturing towards himself, Jacob's face crumpled to one of weary desperation. "Sammy. Honey...it's me. I swear to you it's me. What happened to Jonas—" He stopped at her stormy expression. "I'm sorry it happened to him."

"My father never approved of our marriage," Sammy pointed out tightly.

"You're right. I didn't. I thought he was a loose cannon. Didn't believe you could change him. Didn't believe he would be able to fix his shit for you." Jacob appeared regretful. "But that didn't mean I wanted that to happen to him. No one deserved that."

Blue eyes glazed over as she silently agreed.

"It's been two years, Samantha. _Two_ years. You can't ignore me. I'm alive. I did what I had to in order to come back and make damn sure my little girl was going to beat this war."

Hansen coolly surveyed him. In a flat voice, the corner of her right eye twitching, she seethed, "I think you're stooping pretty low using my father's memories to attack me."

Jacob grabbed her by both arms, pulling Sammy closer, practically shaking her. "Listen to me, young lady! You drop this attitude right now! I am not going to stand there and watch my own daughter give me the cold shoulder! I'll take you over my knee like you were five and spank your bottom red like I did after you burned Mister Benson's bush!"

Hansen stared at him, mouth slightly open. She clamped her mouth shut, eyebrow twitching. She moistened her mouth and tried to speak finally.

"Well...you _sound_ like my father."

Jacob let go her arm with a grin. "That's because I am, kiddo."

Her eyes misted over when she heard the nickname. She stared at him, wide eyed, everything spinning in her gaze, betraying to him just how much this war had cost her, how much it had taken out of her. "I'm sorry. I just can't believe you," she croaked. "You..." She motioned towards his eyes. "I can't get past _that_."

The former general nodded, his eyes old and sad. "Maybe after we win this thing?"

"Perhaps. Maybe when I finally have a chance to bury the dead." Hansen took a step back from him. "I have to check on the Stargate and dial up for Kawalsky. I have to...I have to go." She turned on her heels, heading for the ladder. Almost appearing glad to escape, she started down the ladder when he called to her again.

"Hey."

Hansen looked up.

Jacob stood there on the bridge, suddenly appearing very old. He gave her a crooked curve of his mouth as he waved his hand once. "See you in Denver, okay?"

Sammy nodded mutely. She stepped down to the next rung when she paused. She looked up and met Jacob's eyes. The former general stared back, waiting.

"Good luck." And she continued on down the ladder.

Jacob stared at the space where she'd stood, the lines around his eyes crinkling as he smiled. "Thanks, kiddo," he whispered before going back to standing watch over the activity below.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Sitting in the room, Daniel scratched his face, feeling the beginnings of a beard wanting to come out. The coarse bristles were a subtle reminder of how long he'd been here. Too long, he thought. Daniel grimaced.

All around him, footsteps rang above the engines' humming, loud, urgent as they pounded down hallways. Occasionally, someone remembered he was in here, popped his head in, demanded if he was doing okay, then shot out again before he could give a proper response.

It sounded like the sub was screaming, "Run! Run!"

Boom, boom, boom, went more boots as they rushed by, rattling the room, rocking Daniel's very bones. He sat there, wishing he could do something, anything to ignore the sounds of anxious action outside, the painful tingling still coursing throughout his body. But he wasn't sure what.

But he knew he wanted to do something. Anything rather than sit around for what felt like hours and wait for the Goa'uld to come.

Tentatively touching the folded bandanna around his eyes, Daniel bit his lip thoughtfully. He could feel the layers rolled up to prevent any light shining through the relatively thin fabric.

Scrunching up his face, nose wiggling, Daniel wondered if his sight had improved any at all. It had been a long time, and they did say he would recover in a short amount of time.

But Jack also said not to take it off yet, Daniel reminded himself, grimacing as he recalled the last time he'd tried.

Then again.

_Jack never said anything about thinning out the bandanna_, he reasoned. _I wouldn't be taking it off then. So technically, I wouldn't be...disobeying any orders_. Just enough to see if his eyes hurt. Just enough for maybe light and shadow to come through, for his world to flesh out to something more than the intimidating long, endless darkness.

Fumbling, fingers tracing the profile of his own features, Daniel made a face as he felt the contours of his jaw and cheekbones. He wondered if his counterpart had felt like this when he asked to see Daniel by touching his face.

Carefully tracing the folds of the cloth, Daniel found the knot behind his head. After a few tries, he finally got it loose and pulled it off with a quick tug, keeping his eyes closed.

Daniel could feel the light battering his eyes, tingeing his world to a blurry red from his eyelids. He did feel a little discomfort from the light, so he squeezed them shut even tighter. Rubbing his thumb against the rough cloth, he fiddled around with it until he had it folded only in half. It wasn't as thick anymore. Daniel gingerly wrapped it around his eyes again, tying it loosely behind his head.

He took a deep breath.

Here goes nothing.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, lashes brushing against the fabric as he did.

The first jolt of pain made him gasp out loud. His hands flew up to his eyes as he doubled over on the bed. Hissing, breathing sharply through his teeth, Daniel waited for the sharp bite of pain to subside.

It seemed to take forever, his heart pounding in the pace of the hurrying soldiers outside the room. The humming of the engines grew louder as they readied subs to leave, to abandon this place.

_Breathe. Breathe_, he told himself, relaxing as he felt the pounding shock that threatened to gouge his eyes out fading to a dull ache. Blinking against his blindfold, Daniel raised his head, tilting his eyes deliberately towards the light above him.

Nothing.

A twinge burning his eyes mildly told him it wasn't nothing. But it was manageable. Bearable, even.

Reaching out, Daniel grasped the top of the bunk above him and pulled himself up. Blinking through the cloth, he could make out shapes, oddly deformed behind the distorted light filtering through its weave. He had to close his eyes still when it got too much. But he told himself it was working. It was. He could see.

The shadows in front of him wavered like ghosts. Daniel swallowed.

Well, he could see _something_.

_That's a start_, he thought to himself as he stretched out his hands and took a tentative step forward.

And fell down.

"Oof!" Landing hard on his hip, shoulder banging against something lumpy, Daniel flinched as he heard glass break.

Fumbling, thinking it was the neuar Jolinar had left him, Daniel didn't find a wet spot where the medicine might have spilled. Rather, he found the lumpy object brushing against his palm, the glass tinkling inside it. Feeling metal teeth of the zipper lining the center of the object, he surmised it to be a bag of some kind. Must have been the same bag he'd tripped over before. Brushing against the canvas surface, he grimaced as he heard more glass, a clear sound of something broken underneath.

"Oh no," he murmured in dismay, groping around until he found the zipper's tag and pulled it across. The zipper moved with some protest, long rusted shut probably, not used to the abuse of being opened and closed so many times the past day. It took some time, his fingers were numb, but it finally relented and opened.

Squinting, peering through the safety of the blindfold, Daniel could make out shapes, flat squares with corners, cluttered in a misshapen mess inside. He tried concentrating, to see if he could figure out what they were, but his eyes were now tearing from prolonged use after a long time of not, and he wearily rubbed his shut eyes through the fabric, taking short breaths to ward off the pain.

After a moment, when the sharp pain finally receded to a dull throb, Daniel let his hands drift down to the bag, fingers tentatively touching every item, trying to feel for what he'd broken in his fall. Outside, the soldiers were going back and forth; the alarms grew muted. The engines were silent as well, and Daniel felt yet another shudder.

They were still looking.

The resonation from the Stargate made Daniel's fingers fumble clumsily, and he could hear the items inside the bag rattle along with the sub. He muttered to himself, pulling away before he did more damage when he felt the stiff corner of a photo frame.

Index finger brushing against the sharp corner, Daniel could tell the glass that once covered its face was gone, probably the item broken thanks to him. He carefully pulled it out of the bag, worrying his lower lip as he gingerly felt the frame for any more glass.

Briefly, he wondered if this was the item Jack had referred to before, one of the pictures he'd rummaged through. Daniel wished Jack had described it, but then again, Daniel suspected he wouldn't have wanted to hear anything more about it either.

Squinting, the object placed closer to his eyes, Daniel tried very hard to make out something. He could see two blobs, probably people, standing in the photo. Giving up, Daniel lowered the photo back into the bag. He couldn't tell what was on that picture, but he suspected it was the brothers. Not Daniel standing there alone.

Sighing, wondering why he was doing this to himself, Daniel tucked the frame deeper in the bag to ensure it was cushioned securely. As he pulled his hand away, he felt something scratchy, the surface of a book, and he froze.

_"Still a bit warm," his mother's worried voice floated around him in the dark. Daniel scrunched up his nose, knowing that meant more of the funny tasting medicine that made him sleepy._

_His father sighed, sitting down on the large poster bed his parents slept in during their stay in Cairo. He adjusted the desk lamp on the nightstand so it wouldn't shine on Daniel, slipped his pen in-between the pages he was working on, and peered at him through his glasses. "How are you doing, Danny?" His father took the glass stick out of Daniel's mouth and stared at the line inside. "Hm..." Dark wise eyes looked down at Daniel. "Still warm. You should get some sleep so you'll feel better."_

_"Not sleepy," he mumbled defiantly. Daniel tried to open his eyes wider, gulping the yawn that wanted to rise. He wiggled, sitting up a little. _

_His mother didn't sound mad, but she sighed anyway as she sat on the other side of the bed, putting Daniel in between them both. "I wish they'd given us a better room. His room's window won't open, and all that air conditioning must be making him sick. We should have—"_

_"Hey...this is far better than the tents we sleep in and the one room boards we had to cram into during the digs along the river. I rather like the university finally forking over the money for a decent place to sleep."_

_"But we could have asked for one room instead—"_

_"But you know I need some space to work on this. And I won't be able to get anything done without waking him up constantly with my light on. If Becker doesn't get something from me soon, they might pull our funding—"_

_"But he's really warm now, worse than this afternoon. We should have driven back from the site as soon as his tutor told us." _

_Daniel turned left and right as his parents argued, their voices not loud or angry; they hardly ever were when he was around. But he could tell even at the tender age of five that they were unhappy. Worried, he tugged at his mother's sleeve. _

_"What's the matter, sweetie?" his mother asked, sitting closer to wrap an arm around him. Her other hand went back to his forehead. "You too hot?"_

_Daniel shook his head, lip sticking out in regret._

_The mattress gave a bit as his father sat in closer to him. "What's with the face then, huh?"_

_"Sorry." Daniel whispered. He didn't mean to get sick and make his parents upset. _

_His mother understood without him saying it all out loud. She laughed softly, pulling him onto her lap and rubbed her cheek against his hair. She sighed against his forehead. "It's not your fault. It was that room. Too cold for you. It was all the room's fault."_

_"Bad room."_

_Laughing, Daniel's father agreed. "Yes. Very bad room. We'll punish it tomorrow. You'll have to stay here for the night instead. It's a bit warmer here and—"_

_"Can I? Can I?" Daniel bounced on top of his mother's lap. "Please?"_

_"Whoa! This isn't a party!" his father scolded him lightly. "You are sleeping here. Not running around playing."_

_"But I'm not tired," he complained. His mother brushed her hand across his forehead. _

_"Shhh...Just get some sleep, sweetie. You'll feel better in the morning." She sounded hopeful. Moving him back down on the bed, she pulled the blankets up to his chin. "Mommy and Daddy will be right here, okay?"_

_"But I'm not tired," he protested, wiggling out of the covers, sitting up again._

_"Mel..."_

_His father ruffled Daniel's hair, flipping open his notebook. "How about I read something to you? Bet you'll drop right off to sleep like a log."_

_Daniel frowned. "I didn't know logs sleep, Daddy."_

_"Uh...no...I guess they don't." Chuckling, his father skimmed the pages to a spot. "I'll read until you sleep, okay?"_

_"But I'm not—"_

_"Trust me. After this, you will be."_

_His mother clucked disapprovingly. "Honestly. How can you say that about your own work?"_

_"I'm not, but he's a boy, Claire. He's not running around in the desert—"_

_"Thank God for that."_

_"Ahem...and you know how I tend to go on and on...he'll be asleep really quickly." Clearing his voice, keeping it low and soft, Daniel's father began reading what he had worked on this morning._

_Eyes wide, Daniel listened as his father spoke, his voice deep, smooth, sure of the words he wrote. So many of the words he didn't understand, but there were names, exotic names of gods and myths he'd heard before. It was a long, long fairy tale. _

_He could sense his mother sitting in closer as she listened as well, entranced by the man's voice that stretched on forever. Daniel didn't feel hot any more. He didn't even feel sick as he sat there trying to understand every word his father said. _

_After a long time, his father sighed. "Danny...you're not sleeping..."_

_"Daddy, please...more!" he begged, yanking at his father's sleeve. "Please? I want to hear more about the priests inside the temples. And the jars. Please?"_

_His mother laughed quietly over his head. "Now you've done it. You've created a monster."_

_Pretending to growl, his father picked Daniel up and settled him snugly against the hollow of his shoulder, still smelling faintly like dust and sand. Shaking his head over Daniel's head, his father sighed. "Just a little more, okay?"_

_"Okay."_

_"Then sleep."_

_"Uh...okay."_

_"Danny..."_

_"I promise."_

_Chuckling again, the sound rumbling deep against Daniel's back, his father flipped to another page. "Okay...during the third dynasty..."_

Head bent, Daniel withdrew his hand for the moment, rubbing his fingers together, remembering the texture. Like old dust and sand in a glass that you could dip into. Soft, yet coarse. The book felt like Egypt itself. Some of the most happy days he could recall in his entire life. A time where sitting in the dark was safe, warm, and joyful.

"Egyptian Mysticism," he whispered. His father had cast an air of mysticism that night. All his aches were gone, and with the warmth of his parents surrounding him, Daniel had never felt safer than he did in a time when every place they moved to was as fascinating as it was intimidating. Their presence always told him no matter how strange their new temporary home was he'd be okay.

Then...moving to New York, for a brief job setting up the Museum of Art...

Daniel swallowed, withdrawing further from the book. He shouldn't be here, going through other people's memories, better memories than he could possibly imagine himself ever having.

A knock on the door made him lift his head. To his frustration, all he saw was a tall shadow by the door.

"Doctor Jackson? Uh...it's Lieutenant James from the infirmary. Don't know if you remember me from when I treated you."

"I do," Daniel said simply. He rose with some difficulty, a bit breathless by the time he'd straightened.

The soldier entered the room and snagged the duffel bag Daniel was looking at. "The commander's starting to send people over to some of our refugee planets. This sub and the Cleveland are staying behind. I'm here to get you and some of Doc's stuff to the Franklin."

Daniel stiffened. "Jack and the others."

"Commander Hansen decided she's going over there right now to let them know. We're all going to meet up in Denver three days from now to prepare for Ra's big hoopla."

"I'm going with the commander, then," Daniel decided.

"What? Uh...I was told to get you on the Franklin."

Daniel shook his head. "I'm sorry, but Jack's getting the tablet. I have to be there to help him. They have to be translated, and I've got to return home with him and get what we need in order to contact the Asgards."

James could be heard shifting outside the door. "I can understand how you would prefer to stay with them to get home, but I have my orders—ah crap. Come on. I'll take you to her."

Smiling, relieved, Daniel reached out to grab James' offered hand, the limb blurry in front of him. But before he could hold on, the sub shuddered.

"What the?" James jerked back. People outside of the room could be heard stopping.

Daniel froze, his smile fading as he felt the entire room shake, things jumping and falling off shelves he couldn't see, a low roar that grew louder and louder until it felt like the entire sub was rocking back and forth. He stumbled, crashing into James. "Oh God..."

"What? Doctor Jackson, what is it?"

Daniel tilted his blindfolded eyes towards the ceiling, screaming mentally inside because he couldn't see, because they were too late.

"They're here."

And suddenly the sub heaved with a sound that roared throughout the entire boat, followed by a rush of heat knifing through the chilled air and out the doorway. Daniel found himself falling, crashing into the young soldier before the light that had filtered through vanished into more darkness. He drowned in the darkness, floundering as he failed to stay awake, the sounds of others screaming flooding around him, alarms shrieking moments too late their warning as he went unwillingly into the false night.


	32. Chapter 31

**CHAPTER THIRTY ONE**

The adjunct leader General Hammond felt the first rumble of the gliders' arrival in their vicinity before the soldier at lookout point screamed a battleship was sighted.

Before the first blast announcing the gliders' arrival came and blew up the small observation tower perched outside the cave, destroying both man and structure to nothing.

It seemed pathetically useless that the alarms would ring out right now.

The light from the cave's mouth was flickering, as death gliders zipped past their hideout, trying to find a way in the narrow entrance, resorting to blasting the ice around the mouth to force it wider.

"General!" Hansen was still waving men through the Stargate. "We're dialing the last set of symbols we sent Kawalsky to!"

"How many went through so far?" he shouted back as he watched the commander stagger to the Giza, slamming down symbols as soon as the Stargate had shut off. Already, the subs were rumbling, engines whining in a fevered pitch as they tried to keep up with the power.

"Ninety!" Hansen shouted just as the seventh chevron locked and engaged. She flinched at the gush of light spinning out, stopping inches from her face, from the Giza she was standing by before inverting on the other side into the cave wall.

Hammond made a quick decision. He looked across to the U.S.S Franklin where Maybourne was, getting the sub ready to dive. The fellow general gazed back at him and nodded.

"We're almost read—"

Another blast came through the opening as one glider tried to get in, still too narrow for it. Hammond flinched as it soared past him, past the cables that hung from the ice ceiling above and landed somewhere behind him, scoring ice chunks down to the ground below.

"We have to blow this gate!" Hammond roared back, wondering if his face was red with burns. The blast felt close. He clambered down the ladder, gave one of the soldiers running by a push to get him going, and caught neatly in his hands a rifle tossed over by Hansen. "They're right over us!"

Maybourne waved his hands, two fingers slashing the air near his throat. "I don't have everyone here yet!"

"Get as many as you can! The rest of us will go through the Stargate!"

Another blast, this one close and loud. The ground thundered and cracked.

"Sir!" a soldier shouted, horrified, pointing to a place behind him. Hammond spun around and stared as he realized it landed on one of their subs.

The Miro.

Hammond turned around, shouted for soldiers to get to their stations, get people to help those still trapped in the blackened hull. He could hear the metal creak, bending as the blast weakened its side, crumbling it inwards, tilting the boat.

"Siler!" Hansen screamed as Hammond saw a tall figure dart past him. "Don't!"

Hammond gestured to the soldier to come back, but the sergeant was already climbing up the crooked submarine's ladder to the bridge. "Siler!"

"The engines!" Siler shouted back as he swung around to the tower, nearly falling as the sub tilted counterclockwise, more and more water being filled. "I can set the timer and still use the engines to blow the Stargate!"

"Siler, get back here!" Hansen was running towards the sub now as soldiers bolted past her to the active Stargate. Ferretti stood by the DHD, hollering for everyone to move it. "We don't have time! We can't hold the gate open too long!" She glared at the bridge. Siler was gone as the soldier ducked inside the lopsided boat. "Damn it!"

Running up to Hammond, parka discarded to loosen his movements, Maybourne waved a few soldiers over to get to the Miro. "How many were still in there?" he asked anxiously, eyeing the cave, waiting for the enemy to show up. Back towards Hammond, he glanced at the other sub, hearing the Franklin hum as the engines began to build up its energy to blow. "We've got thirteen minutes, George. I can't risk any more time than that!"

A shock cascaded over the cave, and they found themselves on the floor again.

Hammond glared at the ceiling, daring it to try and collapse on him now. "A dozen or so. Damn, Siler ran back inside to rig those engines, too. They went to empty the medical supplies and—" His eyes widened and he turned to Harry. "To get Doctor Jackson."

Hansen blanched, spinning sharply towards the Miro. Maybourne swore, picking up his weapon and ran towards the sub.

"Harry, wait!" Hammond got up but then he heard the telltale whine of teleport rings behind him.

"Incoming!" he shouted, spinning back around, his gun ready as he saw the beam of light landing on his level. He didn't wait for them to materialize. He fired the moment he saw the rings vanish. But he knew it wasn't enough as he heard more teleport rings beaming down further away, distant gunfire mimicking his.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Water.

Cold, icy water.

Daniel stirred, waking to a blend of sound, ice, and heat. It was an odd mixture. He couldn't understand how he could be feeling hot and cold at the same time.

Suddenly, his world tilted.

Daniel shouted, along with a stray few he could hear outside the room as the floor swerved to the left, sliding them across, out of rooms, slamming to the other side. The sub around them groaned, and something was buckling, folding in around them.

They're here.

Daniel sat up like a shot, coughing out water, gasping as memory returned, bringing him with a jerk back to reality. He pushed off his hands which somehow had been tangled with something, water icy cold up to his wrists, numbing them. He stumbled, trying to find balance on a slanted floor.

Another blast, heat screaming past his right shoulder, and he was back on his knees again.

He couldn't see. Nothing! The lights had gone crazy, flashing brightly then not at all. He couldn't even rely on shadows to determine distance. Fumbling, he stretched out his hands, wondering which direction was out, wondering what had happened to the voices he'd heard before, why now he only heard one or two. He went on his knees, relying on the floor to provide him a sense of where he was going, bumped into the doorway of his room, and found something blocking his way. Touching it, it felt like a body buried under some metal.

Then, he remembered.

James.

"Lieutenant James?" he called out, stunned to hear his own voice cracking. He shook the limb with his hand but received no response. He tried again and shouted when he felt another pair of arms hauling him up instead, twisting him around to face somewhere.

"Leave him, Doctor Jackson! Half of the barracks landed right on him!" An unfamiliar voice shouted in his ear. Daniel spun blindly towards it, but he was being pushed towards the direction in front of him and veered around molten metal he could feel through his clothes, still sizzling from the blast. "Go! Keep walking that way—"

Something screamed over his head. A death glider, Daniel recognized the sound with a gasp. It soared past the sub, sounding very close. Closer than the patrolling ones before, and the floor under his feet curved, then flattened as another blast tore through the sub hull behind him.

The hand helping Daniel was suddenly gone. He cried out, reaching for the person who was trying to aid him but felt a gush of water slamming him down on the ground instead.

The sub was taking on water.

Oh God. He could feel the sub shift, going lower, its nose tilting forward, sliding him further up front until his shoulder bumped into a doorway.

"Close that door!" someone was shouting. "Seal the section!"

"Doctor Jackson, this way!"

Too many voices, too many talking at once. He tried to be heard, one hand searching behind him for the person who'd helped him.

Daniel raised his head and forced his voice to be as loud as possible. "I need help here! Someone's hurt! Over here!"

"Where's Adams?" another voice was shouting. It didn't sound like anyone heard Daniel.

"Hatch is sealed! Can't get it to—"

"Engine room is still good! Siler sealed it behind him!"

"I have a breach in the torpedo room!"

"Move everyone out of here! Now!"

Daniel sputtered, feeling water pulling at his legs, yanking him back, then pushing him forward. He grabbed the door handle above him and pulled himself up. He fell back down again though. Frustrated, he didn't hear splashing behind him, didn't know someone else was still in the same section with him until two arms, two different feeling arms, slipped under his and pulled him up.

Ice water dribbled down his face, the blindfold soaked and clung to his eyes. With a frustrated growl, he ripped the fabric off as he stumbled through the doorway and felt the person behind him slam it shut.

"Wait! There was someone else in there!" Daniel spun around but felt a shove pushing him ahead, away from that section. "Wait!"

"It's flooding back there. The Miro is taking water!" A different voice barked, rough with regret, sounding strangely familiar. His hands on Daniel's shoulders, the new person was urging him ahead.

Daniel grasped the nearby soldier's arm. "You're Siler, aren't you?"

Siler only grunted. "We have to go, Doctor Jackson—"

Another soldier splashed up to them. "Are the engines—"

Siler, supporting Daniel, responded curtly to the other. "Yeah. I got it at twelve minutes. I don't think the doors can hold back the water past that. The naquada reactors can be submerged for that long and still be effective to punch a big enough hole in this cave."

A loud rumble shook the entire boat, and Daniel froze, head up, forcing his eyes open. He couldn't see anything with the light flickering in and out, but he knew what it was.

A battleship. It was coming this way.

Daniel stumbled, the other soldier in front of him shouting as he tripped over debris and other soft obstacles he didn't want to think about. Gasping, icy water around his knees now, Daniel's eyes teared from trying too hard to see anything at all, salty water mixing with the frigid cold water around the sub.

Another blast.

God, when was this sub ever going to stop moving?

Daniel found himself on his knees again; the splashing of the soldier behind him was gone. He raised his head and thought he could vaguely make out eyes staring back at him. But he couldn't be sure.

Everything blurred, flared to white light, then taunted him with flashes of color and shape before returning to the maddening pattern once more. He reached out and felt something hot, sticky, oozing out of something warm and pliable, and he recoiled. The sub twisted once more, turning to expose its belly, and the floor suddenly became a wall, the wall now the floor. Water splashed down over him as the sub rotated, and Daniel swore he tasted something ironlike, as if tainted with blood.

Screaming. He could hear screaming, see shadows vaguely swaying back and forth. First there were a lot of them screaming, echoing in the distance, but then some disappeared, abruptly cut off when the sub heaved once more. Daniel didn't want to know why. He got up, clawing the floor, hoping to rise when the sub lurched again, righting itself.

"Damn it!" he cried out, water filling his mouth with the blood tinged liquid. He nearly threw up. But he made himself only spit it out, then turned back to try and pinpoint where Siler was. When he couldn't, he gave a small cry of despair and forced himself to get up, half floating in the waist high water. He spun around, hands splashing the water furiously, trying to find Siler who was behind him. He wasn't going to leave one more behind.

Someone groaned.

"Siler?" Daniel asked anxiously. The sub groaned, and he fell on his knees, landing on what felt like legs.

"Go...get out of here..."

Daniel fumbled around, found Siler's arms, and tugged them up. His body screamed for him to let go; his eyes teared, burning as the chaotic flashes of light seared his healing eyes. Daniel grunted, letting the pain keep him awake and kept pulling.

"Come on!" he cried out to Siler. "I can't do this alone!"

Siler struggled weakly, latching onto Daniel's shoulder with a weak grip and got up. Daniel staggered under the added weight, but he gritted his teeth, nodding towards the direction they were facing.

"Tell me which way I'm supposed to go," he pleaded with Siler as he felt the soldier sag. Daniel's teeth chattered as the icy water lapped around his chest. He was more floating than standing now.

"Forward. Keep walking forward..."

"What am I near? Tell me," Daniel said as he half dragged Siler. "I memorized most of the sub when your commander showed me...I can count...steps...ah!" Daniel cried out as Siler's legs buckled, pulling them both down. "Siler!"

Nothing. Siler fell silent. Daniel yanked him up, pulling a limp arm around his own shoulders and gritted his teeth. He couldn't feel his legs anymore. It was so cold. So damn cold.

"Concentrate!" Daniel shouted to himself. He heard no one else around him. He didn't want to dwell on the possibility that they were the only ones left. He squinted, staring; shadows filled out with color, then faded to white light, then back to burning fiery colors again. His eyes hurt so much. God, they hurt so much.

"Keep walking," he seethed, forcing his legs to splash forward, cut through the water, the current that was pulling him back as the sub began to sink, tail first. "You were near the engine room...the ladder was in the center of the mess hall...how many steps...how many steps?"

Siler didn't respond. Daniel kept pulling the soldier with him, panting as icy water clawed at his chest, threatening to pull him under with the rest of the dead bodies Daniel imagined were floating around them.

"Come on, keep going. Ten, eleven—God!" Daniel screamed as he felt a body float past his legs, tangling with his limbs. He twisted, nearly falling into the rising depths. Siler groaned, and Daniel nearly sagged in relief. There was still one alive. He had to keep going!

"Thirteen, f-fourteen..." Daniel scanned the sub frantically. Fourteen steps. This was it. It should be here. Or did he go the wrong direction? Did he miscount during the tour Hansen had given? Did he overcount his steps? Daniel pressed against the walls, rubbing his shoulders against the surface to feel for the ladder, his arms heavy with Siler. He was wheezing now, panic threatening to make him scream again when another body brushed against his legs, a stray hand against his chest, and he caught the glimpse of staring eyes through murky vision before the image was mercifully snatched away when his sight returned to darkness.

"Where is it? Where is it?" Daniel shouted, banging into the other wall, losing track of direction. Where was he facing now? Toward the engines? The forward? Which wall? The ladder had to be here—

Daniel nearly cried out in relief when his shoulder slammed into the thin horizontal rail of the ladder. He grabbed it with one hand, pulling Siler in front of him with the other. He didn't know how he did it. Siler towered above him at least a few inches. The heavier soldier was dragging Daniel's arm, and everything hurt. But he got him draped on his shoulder somehow. Daniel couldn't leave him here.

He curled his fingers around the rung, gritting his teeth as he pulled. He slumped over the ladder, clinging to it as he gasped. He couldn't do it. Siler was too heavy. Daniel pulled again, groaning as his body sagged. The water around him was actually relaxing now, cold taking the heated strain away from his aching muscles, numbing, taking the pain away. He could feel his fingers letting go...

"Doctor Jackson!" A voice shouted out from above him. Daniel's head shot up.

"H-help." he croaked, Siler's weight pushing him down, his fingers uncurling around the rungs. He was so tired. He couldn't move anymore. And it was so cold.

A large hand clasped over his wrist before he could let go, and Daniel squinted, seeing nothing more than a shadow blocking the ladder's tunnel leading up to the bridge, then freedom.

"Here. I'll take Siler. Sammy, grab him before he falls back in."

As Siler's presence was suddenly gone from his shoulders, Daniel felt a slender hand snaking forward. He sagged, the loss of weight a huge relief, but the smaller hand held fast, another reaching out to grab his other wrist, over the bracelet. The pressure of the squeeze over the circlet was painful, but Daniel welcomed it as he felt its strength, pulling him up, barely needing him to do anything more than put his feet on the rungs.

"Got him!" A female voice shouted above him as cold air greeted Daniel. Hansen. He nearly fell forward in relief as open air snapped at his face. But he stiffened when he heard the whining hum of teleport rings.

"More incoming!"

Something whizzed by, hot and quick and exploded behind him.

The sub tilted further.

Daniel shouted as he felt himself being pulled over the bridge, not even bothering with the ladder as Hansen grabbed him by the waist and jumped.

Hitting the snow with a thud, Daniel barely felt them shaking him, pulling him up as the sounds of the sub sinking deeper into the waters under the cave and the sounds of more staff weapons blared around him.

Daniel couldn't tell where everything was coming from. Hands, arms, were grabbing him, hauling him up and ahead like a sack. His legs barely coordinated into a running pace before someone shouted a warning and he was slammed face down into the snow before the high pitched whine of a staff weapon soared over his head.

"You okay?" Hansen demanded, but she didn't wait for a response as she got Daniel up again and dragged him across. She spun around, seeing Maybourne with Siler, running for the Stargate, Ferretti firing madly at the next set of teleport rings showing up in front of them. General Hammond was pushing more soldiers towards the Franklin, gesturing he was going in, instead. She tried not to, but she couldn't stop herself from searching for Jacob.

There.

The Tok'ra popped his head up from the bridge, hollering they had to go now, pointing to the last remaining sub, the Cleveland in the center, then to his watch.

"Seven minutes!" Jacob screamed, waving to Sammy to go. She nodded curtly, dragging Jackson along with her. The archeologist was trying his best to run, but she could see from his tightly scrunched up eyes that he could barely crawl on his own.

"Commander!"

Shit. She dropped to the ground, rolling as she pulled out her rifle, firing at the teleport rings flashing in front of her.

Another behind her.

To her left.

To her right.

Too many.

The battleship was arriving over their heads, the rings depositing too many guards for them to get a jump on and now a few of them had managed to avoid their bullets, materializing in corners their weapons couldn't reach. Staff weapon fire returned at them as soon as they landed on the icy cave.

"Just go!" Sammy shouted to the soldiers surrounding the cave mouth. Some backed away, others held fast, shouting obscenities at the gliders zipping by, unable to get in.

A blast shrieked by her, searing her rifle out of her hands, and she whipped around in time to see the Jaffa guard beaming down in front of her, the one who fired was running towards her. She could see the recognition in their determined run, her face on every holo-cube the Goa'uld bastards carried. She backed away, seeing a grenade tossed in their direction.

"Heads up!" Maybourne hollered.

Hansen didn't flinch as she ran, the explosion behind her blowing a hole large enough to reveal the water lapping underneath the cave, the ground cracking from the battle, already thinned by the tremors the subs were emitting as one readied to escape, the other to blow.

"Sammy!" Jacob was still on the bridge, staring at her as she ran to the Stargate.

"Just go! Dive!" she hollered, not bothering to turn around. She could hear Hammond, shouting to her, staff weapons drowning out his words. She could feel time stretch, know that the sub had to go now to avoid the explosion that would bury the Stargate under icy waters and snow. She felt Jackson running more steadily now, recovering enough to work on automatic. He was gasping as he could hear the battle raging around them but didn't stop, legs pumping hard to reach the Stargate she was steering him towards.

Ferretti was gesturing to her, motioning to people still behind her to hurry before he dove into the Stargate head first. She spared a look behind her, dismayed to see there were still too many soldiers stubbornly trying to destroy as many of the teleport rings showing up as they could, but the ratio of soldier to Jaffa was increasing in the enemy's favor. Hammond was on the bridge now, yelling for them to retreat, to head for the sub, the Stargate, anything before the damn base was destroyed under their feet. She gave Hammond a look, the general only nodding briefly before returning fire at the guards in order for his men to run to the sub.

A look was all she could give. No time to say good luck. Or farewell. She gripped Jackson's wrist tightly, pulling him closer and closer to the Stargate, her eyes focused on the flat pool of light and energy. She heard the whine of another ring depositing more people, but she didn't spare it a glance as she neared the Stargate and readied herself to jump.

She ran right at the wormhole, one hand on Jackson's. She could hear more and more staff weapons and less and less gunfire. But she didn't stop. She couldn't afford to look back. She reached for the event horizon, felt its electric surface sparking at her tips and leaped towards it. At the last second, she heard another teleport, this one so close. She spun her head sharply mid-flight as she dove into the Stargate and caught the glimpse of armor and glowing red eyes before she felt Jackson's hand ripped from her grasp.

"No!" she shouted, but the pull from the wormhole swallowed her scream and yanked her away before she could turn back.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

At the first chevron lighting, everyone spun around.

Kawalsky gawked at the Stargate before turning to Simmons. "What the hell did you tell them?"

"N-nothing. Just that the tablet had been found." The young soldier gawked at the Stargate.

"No one should be coming through the Chapa'ai," Jolinar said softly before pulling out her weapon.

Jack narrowed his eyes. No, no one should. He yanked out his gun, wishing he had something bigger.

_Like a tank_, he thought sourly, glaring at the inadequate handgun in his fist.

The Stargate gushed out its spinning column of light. Everyone flinched, waiting, weapons aimed at the settling event horizon. They stood there, glaring at the sparkling pool, waiting.

And waiting.

"Uh...maybe they're radioing us?" Kawalsky suggested. "In reply to Graham's message?"

Simmons turned sharply towards Kawalsky but said nothing. He only gripped his rifle tighter.

"I am getting no reaction from my communication globe," Jolinar said, for some reason whispering. "I—"

She didn't get to finish when three soldiers burst through the Stargate, one shouting, "Don't shoot!" as they flung their arms up.

"Stein? Jones?" Kawalsky didn't lower his weapon, staring at them with disbelief. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Panting, the soldiers dropped their arms to their sides.

"W-wait. You've got...got some more..." one of them wheezed, waving a hand weakly at the Stargate, head dropping to his knees as he gathered his strength.

Sure enough, four more popped through, then two right after them. They all were winded, breathless, all turning back to the Stargate, staring before they tumbled away.

"What's going on? What happened?" Jack demanded, pulling at one soldier. He vaguely recognized the man with mild surprise as one from NORAD, their usual guard greeting them at the front gate for check in.

"I..." The soldier appeared to be in shock. "They...they found us."

"Who?" Kawalsky was there in an instant. "Who?"

"The—"

More soldiers tumbled out, some crashing into the previous group, too stunned to react.

Jack acted quickly, reacting to their dazed faces more than the facts he still didn't know yet. "Okay! Everyone back away before you create a damn pile up in front of the Stargate!" He spun to another familiar face, the technician from their world. "How many more are coming?"

The sergeant in charge of dialing the gate in his reality gave him a blank stare Jack had never seen his version give before.

"Jones!" Stomping over to him, Kawalsky gave the technician a shake. "How many? What the hell is going on here?"

"We were attacked...the Goa'ulds...they found our base. We were evacuating already by the commander's orders, to other planets...dialed h-here...n-next..." Jones was winded. He shook his head. "There was no—"

More soldiers flew out of the Stargate, and Jack whipped his head towards them, scanning quickly each and every one.

No Daniel.

Jolinar was thinking the same thing. "Where is Dan-yel Jackson?"

One of the soldiers calmed enough to offer an answer. "He was in the Miro when I last saw him."

"I saw the Miro take a hit from one of the gliders," another volunteered in a breathless voice. "Just before I went through."

Jack stared at the soldiers lingering in the back of the chamber. "What?"

At the moment, before anyone could answer, Ferretti tumbled out of the Stargate with a couple of others, shouting as he collided with Kawalsky, who was standing too close to the Stargate. The two men tumbled away from the Stargate in a tangle of arms and legs, others jumping back to avoid them and the other soldiers coming through.

"Lou!" Kawalsky grabbed his friend by the shoulders, utter relief in his expression. But concern snapped back into the captain's face as he shook Ferretti. "What the hell is going on back there? Where is the commander? And the generals? And what about Doctor Jackson?"

"Miro...took a hit..." Ferretti panted. "Saw the commander...and General Maybourne went to get him...Saw...saw them get him out."

"Then where is he?" Jack barked, scanning the event horizon frantically, waiting, hoping the next few bodies stumbling through would include his friend.

"They were right behind me." Twisting around, Ferretti frowned at the gate.

"The Stargate," Jolinar urged, kneeling down by Ferretti. "Did they initiate the contingency plan?

Nodding, Ferretti coughed, waving towards the gate. "We had the subs set up to blow...should be another...six...maybe seven minutes to go..."

"What?" Jack gaped at Ferretti. "Blow? The subs? What are you talking about?"

Kawalsky kept his eyes on the portal as he explained. "We figured we couldn't hide in that base forever. We had mapped out how we would evac, meet up on one of the refugee planets and hop through a Stargate, posing as miners delivering ore."

"What about the Stargate there?" Jack seethed, not really wanting to hear the logistics of the tale.

Frowning, Kawalsky turned to Jack. "We have two subs with nuclear and naquada reactors. If we were...compromised, the commander and the generals had agreed we should rig them to blow, bury the Stargate so the Goa'ulds can't get it. Our guys down in Peru and Sydney would try to retrieve it later on if it survived the blast or we would find ourselves a ship to slip inside and use theirs."

Suddenly, a few more soldiers came through, gasping out of breath, tumbling out as they were caught mid-run when they first entered. Jack tensed, checking each one, his eerie sense of dread growing to a small roar in his ears when he saw none who resembled Daniel.

Commander Hansen burst out from the Stargate, spinning around immediately to the Stargate.

Commander!" Kawalsky got up, running towards her. "Where's—"

"Where's Daniel?" Jack ran up to her, grabbing her by the arm.

Hansen didn't notice, staring at the Stargate. "I had him with me. I had his hand in mine! We were heading for the Stargate when I felt him pulled away from me." She turned to Jack, eyes wide. "I couldn't turn around to get him back."

Jack spun his head back to the Stargate. Daniel, he thought, tensing, ready to jump through the damn thing dividing him and his friend when he heard Kawalsky bark a warning and he stopped.

Jack couldn't.

The wormhole only went one way.

Frustrated, Jack felt like screaming as he stood back, staring at the event horizon.

_Come on, Daniel. Now would be a good time to show up._

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

One minute he felt her hand squeezing his, and the next minute a large metal grip slammed down on his shoulder. He felt himself jerked back, his hand ripped from her grasp, her nails scratching the inside of his wrist as he went.

"Che tol mak _re'klya_!"

_Oh God, here we go with the re'klya thing again. _

Daniel didn't know when he had time to think such a wry remark as he was being thrown down over the ice, the Jaffa pressing his knee on his stomach, the hiss of a staff weapon sizzled in front of his face, the sparks' heat close to his nose.

"Doctor Jackson!"

Daniel thought he heard Maybourne's voice, but he wasn't sure. Too many things were happening. Hands pressing down on his chest, screaming from men, one by one getting cut off. He could hear gunfire, dropping off one by one as well.

"Five minutes!" a voice from afar shouted.

Five? What five minutes?

Daniel gasped as he felt the Jaffa move, heard metal scraping metal as a knife was unsheathed. He flung out his hands, a blur of the armor's copper colors and a glint of metal wavering before him. Somehow, he didn't know how, his hands guided by obscure blobs of color, caught the wrist before it could bring down the dagger.

"N-no," he croaked out. He wasn't going to die here. Not when the Stargate was inches from his head. He could feel it. The electrifying snap of its event horizon beckoned to him, cooing how everyone was on the other side. Jack was waiting on the other side. All he had to do was go across, and he'd be that much closer to home.

Gunfire screeched all over the cave, echoing endlessly over the responding weapon fire from the Jaffa. People were screaming, shouting, demanding. Perhaps too busy to realize Daniel had what felt like a two-ton truck on top of his chest, a knife straining to come close enough to nail his head to the ground below.

"Doctor Jackson!"

"Four minutes! Damn it, Harry! Get to that Stargate!"

"You shut that damn hatch and dive! _Dive_!"

Gasping, twisting, Daniel held fast to the wrist, the knife point close enough for his fuzzy vision to see the tip catch the outside light. Like a deadly gem, glittering over the tip of his nose. He shouted, twisting away, felt the weight off him. He kicked up, feet square on the guard's stomach. Despite the armor, the guard felt the blow and grunted in surprise.

Just grunted.

"Sek whou nah!"

Daniel didn't bother translating it. They all meant the same at this point. Die _re'klya_, die. They all meant the same. He gritted his teeth and kicked out once more, feeling the guard jerk once, then twice with his next blow. Daniel released the wrist and rolled away, staggering towards the Stargate.

A kick to his legs and he was down again. Daniel gritted his teeth, fingers scraping the bottom chevron brace before he was pulled away and felt himself being dragged back from escape. He twisted around, kicking furiously, wildly, hoping he'd struck a target; the colors wildly flashing in front of him didn't reveal to him if he was successful enough. But then he felt a hand clamping over his mouth, a large body looming over him, dragging him up to let his feet dangle inches off the ground, and the telltale sharpness of a dagger's edge.

"Shen te..._re'klya_..."

Daniel stiffened as he saw a glint of light sharpening in his vision, rising high above, before diving down.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Maybourne was still lugging the semi-conscious Siler, dragging him without apology. Twisting his head, he shouted over his shoulders at the soldiers still stubbornly firing at any Jaffa their bullets could reach, mowing them down before they could get to the Stargate.

"Move it! Into the sub!" There was no time left. The sub had to go now if it were to escape the explosion. God knew how far out the naquada reactors would extend the damage from the blast. "Get going!"

"Doctor Jackson!"

He spun around at Hammond's shout, cursing as he saw the Jaffa looming over Jackson. He tugged at Siler, snapping at his ears. The sergeant was rousing, red rimmed eyes blinking back at him with a daze. Maybourne barked at him. "Shake it off, soldier! Pick up your feet!"

The command seemed to work. Siler sluggishly scanned the cave. The random sparks of gunfire and staff weapons woke him further. He straightened, nodding shakily as he tried to run on his own.

"Four minutes! Damn it, Harry! Get to that Stargate!" Hammond hollered from the bridge of the Franklin, barely audible above the spit of rapid gunfire from his rifle.

Maybourne pointed to the sub. "You shut that damn hatch and dive! _Dive_!" He whistled to the remaining men, gesturing wildly for them to give it up and just get the hell out of Dodge. He turned back, full steam ahead, minutes mentally counting down as he plowed towards Jackson.

_Don't make me miss_, he thought, dropping down on one knee as he flipped his rifle's sight to his eye, aimed and fired off a shot with a quick jerk back from his index finger on the trigger.

It landed square on the Jaffa's shoulder.

The guard roared, knife dropping, and Maybourne got up, running towards them, not bothering with the self-indulgent sigh of relief. Six feet, five feet, he headed for the gate, hearing people behind him finally doing the same, the rumble above them getting louder as the battleship readied to stay above them and take root, ready to deposit dozens more guards to the base below.

Harry would have been flattered, he supposed, to have such notoriety to warrant a Goa'uld battleship to come personally to see them in hell. But he didn't give it much thought as he charged right at the guard.

Hitting the enemy right at the waist, Maybourne felt blood from the Jaffa's wound drip on his hair and face, mildly surprised to see it was red. He felt the guard crashing to the ice like a mighty Goliath. Panting, Maybourne wiped his mouth, glancing over his shoulder to make sure there were still soldiers behind him. He ducked as a stray staff weapon charge sailed by him, landing inches from the stone frame of the Stargate. He checked Jackson critically.

"You okay?" he demanded, getting a half-dazed nod from the archeologist. That was enough.

"Two minutes!" Hammond shouted, firing down at the cave below, cutting a border between the Jaffa and the remaining soldiers.

Maybourne cursed as he twisted around and saw Hammond was still perched on the bridge. "Damn it, George! Stick that ugly bald head of yours inside and GO!"

"General!"

Too late. The warning came too late as he felt the guard behind him stir and ram into him bodily. The smaller man grunted, shoulder crashing into the snow harder than he should. He got up just as Siler finally reached them. He was about to lunge for the archeologist when he saw Jackson, struggling with the Jaffa, throw himself into the wormhole, the knife somehow in his hands, dug deep into the guard's as they both fell into the event horizon and were whisked away.

_Good enough_, Maybourne thought, staggering to the wormhole. He saw the submarine U.S.S Franklin rumble, dropping lower into the carved hole they made long ago to serve as its berth. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"Sir!" Siler grabbed Maybourne by the arm. "You have to go through!"

"Wait-" Maybourne started to say, seeing a few soldiers still trying to reach them. He saw one fall, and he pulled away. He could get them. They were close enough for him to run to—

"No, General!" Siler shouted and Maybourne found himself tackled by Siler and shoved through the Stargate without warning. The wormhole took them immediately, pulling them away from the cave so abruptly it stole Maybourne's breath.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

The Jaffa jerked back, metal claws gone, and Daniel fell down hard on the snow below. He saw a blur of golden color before a dark navy tone of the rebels' flightsuits flashed by. He could hear a heavy thud, a smaller sound of someone wheezing. Breathless, he sat there, staring as the navy blur flickered in front of him.

"You okay?"

Daniel could only nod.

"Two minutes!"

Navy blur moved away again, and Daniel tensed. He turned his head and saw the lights shimmering madly in front of his face, bringing tears to his eyes. The Stargate. Almost there.

"Damn it, George! Stick that ugly damn bald head of yours back inside there and GO!" Maybourne. It was Maybourne. Daniel spun his head frantically. He had Siler. Where was he? Who else was left behind? He started to get up unsteadily.

"General!"

Golden armor went past him, an "Oof!" to his left as it impacted Maybourne before it contorted around, and suddenly Daniel was back on the ground again, the heavy weight of the Jaffa returning over his body, a hand shooting out to squeeze the tender cords of his throat. Daniel gasped, gritting his teeth as his arms flailed for something. Anything! His fingers felt the Stargate, tips tingling from the brush against the event horizon. God, he was so close! Fumbling, twisting to get away, feeling fists on his clothes to haul him up, Daniel found by some luck the dropped dagger, and his right hand curled around the heavy handle.

He didn't hesitate.

With a strangled scream, Daniel swung it across and felt it land in something solid. The guard roared, telling him it made its mark, but to his dismay, he was still being pulled up by what seemed to be inhuman strength.

Screaming about Ra, about the sins of a _re'klya_, blah, blah, blah, Daniel could feel the guard struggling to maintain a grip on him, stubbornly holding on to the flightsuit lent him. Daniel could see the sparkles out of the corner of his tearing eyes, pain from straining, but nothing compared to the fact that he was so close to freedom. So damn close!

Daniel didn't care at this point. His hand still clutching the dagger embedded in the Jaffa's torso, he launched himself towards the Stargate, using his weight. But it wasn't enough to tear himself away from the guard, and to Daniel's horror, felt the guard fall in with him as well.

The familiar chill of the wormhole came, snatched him mid-breath and snapped him like a slingshot through light so blind Daniel thought his eyes were going to burn out of their sockets. He couldn't scream out in pain, trapped in the deadlocked grip of the Jaffa, in a deadly embrace.

It felt like forever, the trip to the other side. It came as a shock when Daniel felt air kiss his condensation covered face before he fell through the other end, crashing to the floor, gasping as the Jaffa was still squeezing his shoulder and throat with all his waning strength.

"Oh crap!"

"Jaffa!"

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! There's someone under him!"

"Daniel!"

Jack. He could hear Jack. But Daniel didn't have a chance to respond as he heard a gunshot hit the guard, sending its shockwave through his arms and back.

"Don't shoot! You'll hit him!"

Someone else stumbled through the Stargate.

"General! Siler!"

"Is Doctor Jackson...shit!"

"Put that gun down!"

The Stargate abruptly snapped and fell silent.

"No...The others...damn it...They were right behind me!"

Daniel raised his head, trying to escape, saw a fuzzy round outline of the still Stargate, no one else coming through. He cried out, seeing a blur across the chamber: Jack. The colonel was running towards him, having recovered from the shock of his abrupt arrival when the guard howled, and all sound vanished from the room.

Daniel grunted, kicking, trying to break free of the grip, choking as the hand tightened, then—

Dropped off.

The guard fell on top of him, and Daniel froze.

A hiss.

_Oh God._

"Larva sighted!"

"Get that guy off him!"

"Everyone stay back! Don't let it get near you!"

_Get it off. Get it off._

Something slimy, warm, slithered between the guard's body and his chest. Daniel gasped, twisting, pushing at the hefty weight unsuccessfully, his breath quickening, feeling the slender form traveling over him, leaving a trail of slime on his clothes, his skin.

"Get that thing off him! Daniel! Hey! What are you doing—let go of me! Let me go!"

"You can't go near him! That thing is looking for a host!"

"Get off me! Let me help him!"

_Jack...Someone...why isn't anyone getting it off me?_

The thing hissed, snapping, and he could feel spit on his face. He couldn't see, his eyes deciding it was more merciful by letting his vision retreat into darkness. He could feel its body coil around his throat, sniffing his jugular, and Daniel wanted to scream.

_Get it off! Get it off! Someone!_

He didn't speak, the image of it diving into his mouth making him stiff with panic. He could hear struggling beyond his spot, Jack swearing, screaming at whoever held him back.

"Someone help him! Do something!"

"No, wait!"

_Wait?_ Daniel wanted to scream, shriek, strong image be damned, for someone to help him. But he couldn't move.

He couldn't breathe.

It sniffed him once more, four pronged teeth stroking his throat and hissed against the nape of his neck.

_Jack..._

And suddenly, it snarled and fled.

"Two o'clock, sir!"

A sharp burst of gunfire sounded, and the hissing was gone.

Daniel could feel hands around the back of his neck, the body over his was suddenly gone with a thud off to his side. "Daniel? Daniel, can you hear me?" Jack's voice rumbled above him, decidedly worried. Daniel wanted to respond back he was fine, just dandy thank you very much, but he could still feel the larva crawling around over him, wrapping its disgusting body around his neck. He coughed.

"Not to worry, Colonel," Jolinar's soft, accented voice came towards his direction. "The Goa'uld larva can not blend with a marked host or one who currently is or has been _re'klya_. He was safe from it."

Daniel could hear Jack's harsh breathing and knew it didn't make the colonel feel any better. Daniel silently agreed, his hand weakly clutching the wrist on his shoulder.

"It would have been nice if _SOMEONE TOLD ME THIS BEFORE_!"

Daniel winced. No, Jack was _not _happy.

_Okay, can't blend with me but could have jumped into them. I can deal with that._ Daniel opened his mouth, tried to speak. He started violently when he felt something slip behind his neck.

"Easy, easy. It's just my hand." Jack again, voice calmer now as he tried to sit him up. "Are you okay? Were you hit anywhere?" Another hand brushed over his chest and arms, checking.

No. Daniel wanted to say no, but all he was able to offer was another pathetic strangled sound.

"Okay, calm down. It's okay. You're safe now."

He was. He was. The base was gone, people were dead, and Daniel felt like he was caught in the same nightmare over again. But he was safe. He could feel it when Jack sat him up, wrapped him with a jacket borrowed from someone else, and whispered to him how he could close his eyes for a minute, and no one was watching.

Muscles quivering finally slowed down; eyes hurting went back to numbness. Daniel felt his breathing slowing to a manageable rate. He nodded wearily, feeling his bones gone to rubber, Jack's hand going up and down his back again.

"Relax...you're out of there. You're safe."

Daniel nodded again. Ra. People screaming, dying, drowning...They could wait. For now, he was safe. Daniel felt himself falling, being caught by Jack's hands, heard his name called by someone else, but he didn't care any more. He was out of the place of screaming, dying, and drowning. Jack said he was safe. So he was safe.

Sinking, the faint impressions of color and light seeping away from his eyes, Daniel drifted away, braced against his friend in a reality he wanted to leave as soon as possible.


	33. Chapter 32

**CHAPTER THIRTY TWO**

"No. No. Try again..."

Sam wanted to take the knife she spied hanging off Ferretti's hip sheath and stab it into the copper colored coil under the DHD. Gritting her teeth, she gave the flat curve another push, a little too far off to the right.

"Damn, what the hell is that thing? Looks like a...never mind. Nope, Carter. Definitely not it!"

She had stopped poking her head out to see any more. Each variation before had held a fascination for her, but after three hours of nothing but empty chambers with the occasional pink sky and broken ruins, Sam opted to just stay under this damn thing and keep punching at the coil until they got it right.

The structure shook and something fell from a distance with a loud clang, someone yelping as he got out of its path.

"Crap, there goes another statue," Ferretti was muttering. "Anderson! Make sure the scientists in those rooms are still in one piece, okay?"

"Yes, sir!"

"And where the hell is Rothman? He's here only ten minutes, and he's gone already! Where the hell is he?"

Another soldier to the far right corner piped up, "Think he went back in the room where the bracelets were found!"

"Will someone remind him to radio us every time he moves? I'm not a damn GPS! I can't track everyone!"

Sam smiled sadly. It sounded like something the colonel would say. She could hear the exasperation, the same "Why me?" in the words O'Neill always had in his voice whenever he griped over the long hours either she or Daniel had in the labs or when they were too absorbed in their work to notice the sky falling, Daniel especially. She stole a glance out from under her position. Ferretti was glaring at his men as they went back and forth.

Turning towards the wall, her smile faded at the sight of yet another empty Stargate chamber. No rubble, no dead Jaffa bodies. Nothing. Perfect, unmarred, no signs of battle anywhere.

"Keep trying," she muttered, ducking back inside.

"Huh? You said something, Major?"

Sam waved her hand from under the DHD. "No. Trying for next location number one hundred and six."

"Okay...lucky location number one oh six. I can feel it, Carter. That's my lucky number."

She gave it a slide further to the right. "Well?"

Ferretti was quiet for a moment. He cleared his throat. "Uh...well...one oh seven was always luckier for me, Major."

Carter stuck her head out, gawked at the purplish fog glimmering in the portal wall, a scene totally alien to them, and shot the sheepish soldier a glare. Ferretti shrugged.

"Hey, it's there somewhere," the soldier mumbled. "Sooner or later."

"Preferably sooner," she muttered, about to slide back under when she heard the Stargate light up.

"We got guests coming!" Anderson bellowed from across the room.

"Nice, Sergeant. Maybe you should consider a change of careers to announcer!" Ferretti shook his head, sighing. "Want to bet on who comes through now?"

Carter pursed her lips, shaking her head as she crouched behind the DHD. She was really hating having to stop every time a new scientist popped up or a new relief team came in, everyone stopping, holding their breath, half expecting the person coming through to be wearing armor and have glowing eyes.

"All clear!" Booker shouted from his post, lowering his weapon. "It's Col...I mean...It's Captain O'Neill!"

Sam straightened away from the platform, her brow furrowed. Ferretti got to John first though.

"Captain? How's your broth—"

John walked past him without a word.

"What the hell?" muttered Ferretti, giving Carter a look. She stared at John's back, having caught a glimpse of the dark face that looked like it had shut down. The captain took up the post he was in before by a cluster of statues that hid his form, gun muzzle aimed at the wall, his back to everyone.

"Cap—"

"Don't," Sam told Ferretti quietly. She had seen the look before.

_Something crashed into the door where Daniel's voice was. _

_Sam froze right outside Colonel O'Neill's room, the folder she was bringing over for him to sign to give him something to do during his long recuperation clutched in her hands. She heard a catch of a word. Cromwell. And the colonel snapped again._

_She tensed, alarmed, about to go in there and yank Daniel out if she had to when the door opened._

_Daniel slipped out of the room, about to turn around again when he saw her standing there. Startled, he fumbled with his glasses on his face, pushing them up as he gave her a wan smile._

_"Daniel?"_

_His eyes drifted to her folder, and he gave the door another glance, hand over the knob. Sam caught the dark, grim jawed expression on the colonel's face, eyes pinpricks, lips pressed to a thin angry line. Her eyes wandered to Daniel, and she frowned when she saw water droplets dripping off the tip of his glasses. Alarmed, she took a step closer and caught the sight of a shattered glass by the doorway, a wet puddle seeping out of the room on its own._

_"Daniel—"_

_He closed the door, gaze back to her folder. "Maybe you should wait a bit before you give him anything, Sam."_

_"You okay?" She reached out and touched his hand._

_Daniel blinked, puzzled. "Huh? Oh...you mean this? I stepped over the line a bit." He shrugged, took off his glasses and wiped them with the corner of his jacket. He slipped them back on again and smiled faintly. "See? No harm done."_

_"Is this about Colonel Cromwell?" she asked, referring to the colonel they'd just had a memorial service for in the newly fixed embarkation room._

_His eyes flew up, alarmed. "How did you—" He looked at the shut door. "Oh. I guess he was pretty...loud."_

_"He shouldn't have—"_

_"Forget it, Sam. It's okay. He's not very talkative right now. Probably cooped up in that bed for too long. I shouldn't have pushed. I don't even know why I did that anyway."_

_She opened her mouth to protest. Surely Daniel wasn't just going to drop this, was he? The colonel literally attacked him. Threw a glass at him that was too close for comfort. It was a problem, something which needed to be resolved and not ignored._

_"Some things are better forgotten than talked about. Better to be doing things than sitting around remembering and regretting."_

_Sam blinked._

_Daniel turned to her, understanding in his eyes, speaking of an empathy he shared with the colonel but never spoke about to anyone at all. He raised his hand as if to stop her and dropped it instead. "Sam. Just...don't." And he walked away._

_She stared at the door for the longest time, swallowing as she recalled the face of stone inside the room. And followed Daniel's example and walked away._

"Ferretti...just don't." She knew. This wasn't the time to speak. Action. They needed action.

The other major studied John's back for a moment and shrugged. "Yeah, well..."

"Let's just get back to work." She tossed a concerned glance at the Stargate, wondering what had happened at home and knelt under the DHD. "One oh seven."

"Okay...one oh seven, Carter...No good."

"Okay...trying for one oh eight..."

"One oh eight..."

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Jack was wondering if he was getting too old for all of this.

Bad enough his heart was going like a racecar in the Indy 500, checking every person who flew through the Stargate to see if a certain, often talkative archeologist was among them. But then to have one of them recall seeing the sub Daniel was on taking a hit, his imagination zipped higher than any F-16 ever could.

Jack O'Neill didn't have an imagination.

Get the facts and deal with it.

That's how things were done in Jack's rule book. It was how he survived, how he could get past all the bad shit and still come out smelling sweet as a posy.

Sort of.

But here...

Standing in front of the Stargate, hearing Hansen mutter in shock how she just had him. Had him right there. So damn close to the gate, to safety before she lost him, Jack could have sworn his imagination packed up a bag and hitchhiked out of common sense and into the land of hysteria.

Daniel was on that base still.

Or maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was caught again.

And Jack heard Daniel's scream bouncing inside his head one more time, goosebumps rippling his flesh within seconds. And for one irrational second, he was so grateful, so damn grateful that Daniel hadn't been screaming Jack's name. Because if he had and Jack had returned home alone without him, Jack was certain that scream would burn a tattoo into his soul, his psyche 'til the day he died if not longer.

He'd stood there, muttering every prayer he could think of, tossing in a few mental bargaining chips for good measure, staring at the active Stargate, knowing he couldn't go through. And if the Stargate snapped shut, he still wouldn't be able to go because it would mean the base was gone, including Daniel.

Then the Jaffa came tumbling through.

Locked in his grasp, Daniel was under the bastard, a fist still clutched over a blade dug deep within the Jaffa's side to Jack's shock. Then the guard died after some trigger-happy fresh-faced soldier fired off a shot that landed right on the guard's back. By a miracle, the armor prevented the bullet from traveling further beyond the guard's body to Daniel's, and the alien warrior died with a gurgle. That would have been fine and dandy if Jack hadn't heard the larva escaping.

If his hair hadn't gone completely white before, it must have by now.

Jack started to rush over to get Daniel away from it when he was jerked back by Kawalsky and Ferretti. Try as he might, Jack couldn't break free and was forced to watch as it slithered around Daniel's throat. It was like watching Hathor have her way with Daniel all over again.

Eyes wide, Daniel was gasping with his mouth clamped shut, air forced out between tight lips. He was probably wondering why no one was helping him. Jack was wondering why no one was helping him. Their explanation later on sure as hell didn't smooth things over.

Scowling, Jack sat there, watching as shell-shocked soldiers wandered aimlessly in the chamber, Hansen and a few others talking intently in front of the Stargate. Save Maybourne, that is. The general was standing there, looking at the large portal with a look of regret.

"No…"

Jack looked down, Daniel's head on his shoulder, hidden behind a crate from public view. He saw the light colored head roll from side to side against his shoulder, Daniel shaking, and Jack was disturbed to realize there were too many things the nightmare could be originating from. Too many. It was a miracle Daniel hadn't gone insane from all this.

But you thought he did...once.

Eyebrow twitching, Jack scanned the chamber where all of Machello's inventions originated, staying on one in particular. Salvation for these rebels, but some had put in one heck of a blow to his young friend not too long ago.

Jack shuffled a little closer with his arm around Daniel's shoulder to let him know someone was here to fight the bad monsters.

"No…"

It didn't seem to work. Jack peered at the frowning pale face, eyes shut, mouth partly open, twisting with fear. Daniel always tried to put up a brave front, but in the vulnerability of sleep, all his facades came tumbling down.

Daniel's hands wrung around each other, and Jack could see his legs twitching, ready to kick out as the nightmare progressed. It had gone far enough where Jack was concerned. He curled his arm tighter, pulling Daniel closer so he could whisper to him.

"Hey...hey, buddy...wake up..."

Daniel scrunched up his face, hands turning to fists now. This was bad. Very bad.

"Sh..." Jack rubbed Daniel's right arm up and down. "Sh...wake up...it's not real. Whatever you're seeing, it can't hurt you. Come on, big guy...time to join the rest of the grumpy people."

"How is he?"

Jack looked up, automatically pulling Daniel closer until he realized it was Maybourne. The older officer was gazing down at Daniel with concern.

"Okay," Jack said curtly. He nodded when Maybourne pointed to a spot next to him, asking to sit down.

"Kid had a lot of guts," the general murmured. "We went to the sub to get them, and there he was, clinging on to the ladder, blind as a bat, holding on to Siler with all that water around him."

A chill went down Jack's spine. "Didn't know that."

"Well, I nearly pissed in my pants. Blood in the water, no one else to be heard inside it. They were the only ones left."

Jack swallowed. He changed the subject quickly. "Where are the others?"

"Hopefully, in the sub, somewhere down south, heading for the Gulf."

"Hopefully?"

Maybourne frowned, waving at the Stargate angrily. "Told them to leave, but they stayed to cut a path for us. When I left, the countdown was at two minutes, and the sub had only started submerging." The general growled under his breath. "When we get back and find him alive, I'm gonna kill him. Damn fool should have left the moment he had the sub full."

"J-jack?"

"There's our boy." Looking down, Jack smiled. It faded when he heard Daniel hiss, his hands going up to his eyes. The colonel opened his mouth, about to ask for a blindfold when Maybourne stuck out a handkerchief.

"Not much, but at least it'll cover his eyes enough to filter most of the light."

Jack mumbled his thanks and gingerly wrapped the cloth around Daniel's eyes, tying it securely behind his friend's damp hair. The archeologist moaned softly, feeling the fabric wrapped around his eyes. He sat up, away from Jack. Jackson shivered, fingers automatically curling around the draped jacket and pulling it tighter.

"Where...Jack...is this...?"

"Yeah. Machello's."

Daniel nodded absently, one hand going to the back of his neck, rubbing it for a moment before dropping it in his lap. "Did you find it?"

"We did."

Daniel breathed out softly, relieved. "So what now?"

"That's a good question." Jack looked over at the group still conversing. "I'm thinking we hop on this thing and get the hell out of here, back to lovely...ah..."

"P9H-521," Daniel supplied helpfully.

"Yeah. There. Knock on the wall and go home." Jack turned to Maybourne. "You guys are welcome to come along and regroup."

Maybourne frowned. "There's a lot more to consider here, Colonel. If what just happened to us was any indication, I'm not sure you want us having a sleep over in your reality."

"Aw now! Couple of mats, a few beers, we'll play Truth or Dare, it'll be fine! We'll have a blast, play spin the bottle, truth or dare, pin the ass on the Goa'uld, lots of stuff," Jack drawled. He patted Daniel's left knee, murmuring, "Be right back," and rose, stretching out with a grunt as his back twinged. Yup. He was definitely getting too old for this hopping around, going through mirrors Alice in Wonderland style. He sauntered over to Hansen and the others, having enough of just sitting back as a spectator. With Daniel here, Jack was itching to get stuff done now, even if it was counting heads to see how many were with them. Better than sitting here, just wishing for home.

Sitting there on the floor, Daniel let out a tired whoosh as he leaned back on whatever it was Jack had propped him up against. Even now, he could feel the slither of the Go'uald larva as it escaped the dead guard, seeking a host, probably feeling him with its slimy pronged mouth.

He shuddered.

"You okay?" Kawalsky sat down next to him, pressing a canteen into his hands.

Daniel gratefully took a long gulp, tasting the same stale water like on the sub, and he pulled the container away from his mouth. The water tasted foul as he realized this was all that was probably left of the base.

"Do you remember hearing any of the subs leaving before you fell through the Stargate?" Kawalsky asked hesitantly as he took back the container and drank a long greedy sip.

Maybourne sighed. "I saw them submerging, but I don't know."

Daniel tilted his head, thinking. "I think I heard one was gone or going. But..." He accepted the canteen from Kawalsky again and took another drink. "I don't know if they...if they got away. In time, that is." He quietly returned the container and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "I'm sorry."

"They probably did." Jack's voice hung overhead, and Daniel raised his face towards it. "They're probably twiddling their thumbs somewhere in the ocean deep, cursing the Goa'ulds."

Kawalsky chuckled, sounding strained. "Sure, Colonel." He smacked his fist into a palm. "What I don't get is how the hell did they find us?"

"Spy?" Jack offered quietly.

Maybourne turned sharply to him.

"You don't know that." A stern voice interjected. The three men turned. Sam Hansen stood there and frowned.

"You have no proof, Colonel. No proof. We check each and every person when they arrive. The back of their necks, their throats, even the small of their backs before we even begin x-raying."

"It was another Stargate."

Jack spun around to stare at Daniel. "What?"

"Felt a vibration an hour or so after you all left. Thought the Stargate was activated, but it wasn't. I've felt this vibration before." Nodding towards where Jack was, Daniel whispered, "We had a power surge once and got divided between two Stargates. I got back but Jack..."

"That's how we found the second Stargate in our reality." Jack winced, remembering how his legs screamed with agony, his chest feeling like a jeep was parked on top of him. "Not a fun way of playing explorer, I tell you."

Hansen nodded thoughtfully. "A Stargate holds a certain address depending on location. Two, like Doctor Jackson said, would resonate. They must have tracked down our seismic signature by dialing constantly until they could triangulate our location." She caught the stupefied look from Kawalsky. "What?" she asked irritated. "I wasn't always a war commander."

Kawalsky clamped his mouth shut with a snap.

"So you were never on the Stargate project?" Daniel asked.

"The DTH Project? No."

Jack cocked an eyebrow high. "Uh...DTH?"

"Doorway to Heaven," Kawalsky explained. He looked puzzled when he caught Jack and Daniel's confused expressions. "What?"

"We called it that in the beginning. Well...they did, until I came onto the project." Daniel scratched his chin with a finger. "I don't know. I sort of...um..."

"Named it Stargate?" Smiling, Hansen folded her arms. Jack blinked at the odd sight. Her smile was rare indeed and small as if the task was a long and forgotten one. "Doctor O'Neill did the same after a few months on the project. I heard he thought it made it sound much more mysterious."

_Months?_ Jack darted a glance at Daniel. _Took him two weeks._

"Commander." Ferretti jogged up to Hansen and Kawalsky and snapped to attention. "We've tallied up the items here, without that...uh..." He looked at Jack and Daniel for help.

"Body switcheroo thingie," offered Jack. Daniel shook his head. "What? That's what it does."

Flipping a notebook, Ferretti counted down the list. "We found a few zats, a few search probe globes we can certainly use and some more tablets. He turned to Jack questioningly.

The colonel lifted one up with a crooked grin. "We got your second half right here."

The group visibly relaxed. But Hansen didn't indulge in it too long. Almost immediately, she turned to the others, lingering behind. Counting heads and coming up with over twenty, she barked out her orders in a crisp voice, any exhaustion heard before was gone.

"Okay, the rest of the teams we sent through to the other planets know we meet back on Earth in a few days, no matter what. So we can concentrate on our end here. Kawalsky, how many have you got?"

The captain snapped back into attention as he scanned the room. "Twenty-four with maybe seventeen weapons to divide, sir."

Hansen frowned. "Not enough. Okay, we're going to have to—"

"Uh...excuse me?" Jack whistled, catching her attention. At her glare, he stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled lazily. "You know...we could always bunk at my place. Food's not the greatest, but it's all you can eat and pretty okay beds to sack out on."

Hansen exchanged a look with her CO. Maybourne pursed his lips, studying Jack. "We did promise to assist them back to their world in exchange for this, sir."

"I know."

"And Dan O'Neill and his brother are in their reality. We should retrieve them as well," Jolinar added.

Kawalsky saw the thoughtful expression on Maybourne's face and jumped in. "General Maybourne, they're really okay guys. I mean—"

"Did I say we weren't going?" Maybourne folded his arms across his chest.

Everyone blinked.

Maybourne gestured towards everyone in the chamber. "We have a lot of people here, Commander. This isn't about one or two refugees any more." He stared at Jack. "Think your general will mind a few dozen uninvited guests?"

Jack looked back at him steadily. "Happens all the time." He stuck out his hand. "Cordially extending an invite to Hotel SGC."

Shaking his head, smiling to himself, Maybourne accepted the hand and shook it.

Hansen turned, checking the weary crowd before spotting Simmons lurking in the back. "Graham, before we head out, dial up this address," she tossed him a wadded up piece of paper. The young soldier fumbled, catching it. "Colburn is in charge there of what team members we sent over there. They should be waiting for our call. Let them know where we're going. Tell him we'll meet up in Denver in three days. It'll give us a little over a day to act before Ra arrives."

"Y-yes sir."

Facing Jack and the others, she nodded. "We can head out any time."

Jack nodded, rounding back his shoulders as he bend down and clasped Daniel's wrist, pulling him up. "Come on. We're going home."

Daniel didn't say anything, but he straightened visibly as he nodded.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

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Sitting on the bed, scowling as he recalled how Doctor Fraiser had practically dragged him back here after only a few hours in the lab, Dan found he couldn't sleep. His chest hurt too much to lie down, making breathing impossible in that position. He couldn't tell the doctor either, because it would just be more pointless tests, more medicine that wouldn't work, more needle marks up his arm that he could still feel. So he sat there, in the bed, ignoring a dinner someone had left here for him, holding the pendant this reality's Catherine Langford possessed inside his hands. Absently stroking the pendant nestled in his palm, Dan swallowed.

Dan shook his head, bent over the necklace. Under four days, just under four miserable days, and Ra would come sauntering in, expecting to kill him in a big ceremony. Less than four days, three days twenty hours to be precise. Hopefully, they'd be banging on Ra's door and put a hole through the bastard.

Dan wished he could see it.

John had told him endlessly how they were going to beat him, send Ra packing.

Dan believed him.

John told him he could find the rest of their family, find them okay.

Dan believed him.

But then John said he would find a cure, find a way for him to live longer past the miracle the neuar had provided, find a way for Dan to be able to be there to see Ra's fall and see their family whole.

Dan believed him.

In the beginning.

Even as he sat there in a cold room on a sub, pretending his stomach didn't cramp painfully, smiling up at John during his visits to the base, nodding, agreeing as John said they were close, that Dan was getting better.

Even when it hurt to think, to breathe, to even stand, Dan believed him. Believed John could do it.

But he couldn't anymore.

It was as pointless to lie to himself any more as it was to let John continue making false promises, lying to himself.

So sitting in another dark room, feeling very scared, very alone, Dan knelt there, holding on to one thing that remained constant from both realities.

Catherine's pendant.

He rubbed it, round and round with his thumb, the numbness in his fingers barely letting him register the thin, fine grooves carved into the metal object.

"I don't ask for much..." he whispered to it. "Just for my family, all of my family to be okay. You already have me. Don't take him, too."

SG1SG1SG1

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Daniel peeled back his blindfold a bit, testing his vision when he felt a hand roughly pulling his fingers back down.

"Jack—" he started to say.

To his surprise, Commander Hansen's voice rumbled next to him instead. "Doctor Jackson, we don't need your eyes right now so give it a rest. Literally."

From the right, Jack leaned closer, shooting a glare at Hansen as he whispered, "I was going to say the same thing." He paused, frowning at the commander's back. "Sort of."

Daniel sighed. "Jack, I could see some light coming through this cloth anyway. Why can't I—"

"Look. Last I heard, the doctor in your title was for archeology. Not for medicine." Jack pulled down Daniel's hand again. "Wait until we get home and have Doc herself check you out."

A cold feeling lumped in Daniel's stomach. The thought of Fraiser coming near him, hands stretching out to examine him.

"Hey." Jack touched his elbow, and the cold feeling shattered.

Daniel lifted his head, hearing the Stargate whoosh then roar as its ring was activated, the wormhole gushing out.

"Okay! You know the plan!" Hansen barked. "We have you divided up into four teams of seven. Doctor Jackson, O'Neill, you're with Kawalsky's team."

"Goodie," Jack wryly said. Daniel bit back a smile when he heard Hansen growl.

"Ferretti, your team takes point." She tossed a communication globe at the captain. Ferretti caught it easily. He barely gave it a glance as he nodded to her.

"Yes, sir."

"Siler, how are you feeling?" Her voice softened as she critically examined the engineer up and down.

"Can still run like hell if needed, Commander."

"Good. How many charges did you manage to salvage before you had to abandon base?"

"Enough to blow up a herd of cows if needed."

"Great," Jack quipped. "We can have a barbecue."

A few chuckles circled around the room.

"You." Hansen pointed to the ground, shooting him a glare. "Stay here with Kawalsky's team. You'll have our six."

Jack grinned. "Lovely backsides covered. Gotcha."

Hansen muttered something and went right on, talking to the rest of her team.

Leaning towards Jack, Daniel whispered, "I wish you wouldn't goad her like that, Jack."

"What? Me? I've been a perfect gentleman."

If Jack could have seen his eyes, he'd just bet Daniel was rolling them. The archeologist sighed. "I mean she wasn't really that bad. She's actually nice."

Jack narrowed his gaze. "Yeah. Nice. Nice enough to lose you back there when you guys evacuated."

"Jack—"

"First team through!" Maybourne announced, interrupting what Daniel was going to say.

"Colonel O'Neill."

Daniel caught a blur walking towards him, dark top, perhaps hair, flowing left and right until the blur of color raised its fuzzy limbs and tied it all back. He lifted the edge of his blindfold again to try and get a better look, only to have Jack slap his hand down surprisingly roughly. Daniel jerked back his hand, stung.

"It is not advisable to try again so soon, Dan-yel."

He shrugged. "I'm starting to see things, make out shapes."

"Even still." Jolinar reached out, under Jack's unnerving stare and readjusted Daniel's protection over his eyes. The colonel scowled but turned his head away, averting his gaze. "Perhaps when you return home, your doctors can help. But until then...please."

"Okay," Daniel mumbled, his shoulders slouching.

"Team two! Let's move it!"

Jolinar gazed over her shoulder, watching Simmons and a few others gather by the Stargate. "That would be me." Her hand brushed against Daniel's arm as she left.

"See you on the other side," Daniel called out faintly. He paused, feeling Jack's hold on his elbow tighten. "Jack?"

"Nothing," Jack muttered. "We're almost there, Daniel."

Daniel nodded mutely.

SG1SG1SG1

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Jack wanted nothing more than to go home with both of them in one piece.

"See you on the other side."

Turning sharply to Daniel, he saw the archeologist's eyes, while covered, tracking Jolinar's departure by the movements in the light. As she was swallowed up by the event horizon and Maybourne's team stepped forward waiting for the all clear signal, Jack realized once Daniel saw again, the first thing he'd see would be Jolinar.

In other words, Sha're.

"Jack?"

He jerked his hand back, realizing he was holding on too tight. A dry feeling settled in his mouth as he wondered how Daniel, still grieving for his wife, was going to handle her walking around, treating him as a friend and not as a husband.

"Nothing," Jack muttered, keeping his voice low to hide his misgivings. "We're almost there, Daniel."

The archeologist nodded and stood there, waiting. As the third team went through, he was guided towards the last group, Kawalsky and Hansen waiting by the Stargate.

"Jack?"

"What?" Keeping his eyes on the event horizon, Jack didn't look back down at his friend.

"This place...does it look similar?"

Jack paused, taking a second look. "Yeah. Pretty much. Some of the same stuff is here, too."

"Oh."

"Why?"

Daniel shrugged. "Was wondering if the body changing...um..."

"What? Daniel, what are you thinking?"

Lowering his voice, Daniel murmured, "We could use the switching thing and swap Dan's mind into another body until a cure could be found." He looked hopeful.

"And who would be willing to do that?" Jack asked. His back tingled as he saw Daniel chewing his lower lip. "No," he snapped before Daniel could reply.

"But—"

"Damn it, wasn't this enough? You have to have a rerun? _No._ The answer's no."

Daniel sighed, shoulders slumping. "It was just a thought."

"Well, stop thinking it." Scowling at the top of Daniel's head, Jack grumbled. "I know you want to help him, but don't go over the line by offering yourself as a sacrificial lamb. Don't even suggest it."

"I know. I know. It's just that..." Daniel's voice dropped lower. "Wanted to even the odds for him, balance the scales. He deserves it."

"Eh?"

"Team four," Hansen gestured towards them. "Go!"

Jack tugged at Daniel's arm, mulling over what he'd said. He saw Daniel raise his hand, touching the surface of the event horizon and pause.

Running his fingertips across the pool of light, Daniel could see sparkles filtering through his blindfold. The electric touch snapped at his fingers, and he realized he was going home.

"Oh for the love of God," Hansen muttered and shoved her hand flat against Jack's back.

"Hey—" Jack never got to finish as the wormhole snapped them up and swept them away.

Time stretched then compressed. That's how Jack saw gate travel. You went in, and it felt like forever, then suddenly it spit you out like a hockey puck. Jack theorized it was the Stargate's sadistic way of ensuring you were never prepared to go through it. He was just grateful after years of riding the damn thing he was usually able to arrive with both feet planted on the ground.

Today was the exception.

"Argh!" he managed as he arrived without warning on good old P9H-521 on his rear end, Daniel crashing on top of him before he could stand.

Hansen slipped in behind them, arriving, much to Jack's irritation, on her feet, looking down at him as she extended her hand towards Daniel to assist him back up.

"When I say go," she said tightly. Jack could have sworn he saw a glint of amusement in her blue eyes. "I mean go."

Jack shot up as Kawalsky finished helping Daniel back onto his feet. The colonel waved a finger at her, glaring. Hansen stared back at him, silently daring him to take a shot.

"Aw forget it," Jack muttered, pivoting on his heels to hold onto Daniel again. "That was probably some cosmic justice or something." He tapped Daniel on the elbow. "You okay?"

Nodding, Daniel wrinkled his nose as he stood in the chamber. "Cold here. Is this—""

"Yeah. Almost home."

"Commander. General."

Hansen turned towards Ferretti. The soldier was pointing to the polished wall. "Does this match the description Colonel O'Neill gave you?"

Sammy nodded and looked over to Jack. The colonel arched an eyebrow at her, saying "What?" with his seemingly innocent expression.

Maybourne took a good look around the chamber, noting the minute tremors under his feet. "Ah...so...what do we do to go through, gentlemen?"

Daniel reached out, trying to take a step but stumbled. He found a slender arm curling around his left arm, steadying him.

"Walk well, Dan-yel," Jolinar said softly in his ear. "I am here. You will not fall."

Daniel ducked his head, mumbling his thanks and let her steer him towards Maybourne. He could hear Jack muttering, apparently not happy about something, but Daniel was at a loss to figure out what. He felt a hand on his left wrist and was reminded of the bracelet there, protecting him from the entropic effects of this reality. He had to stop himself from running toward the direction of the wall to get home. Last thing he needed was to start getting hysterical.

"General Maybourne?" Daniel asked and got a grunt in response. "We need to dial the DHD."

Kawalsky piped up, darting a look over to the said device. "An address?"

"No." Waving towards it, Jack shook his head. "The dial control is under the DHD."

"The DHD serves as the remote for the portal," Daniel explained, feeling himself being turned around and walked over to the platform. He tripped over the raised step and felt his ears burn. He could only make out unrecognizable shapes, golden blotches, white circles, dark figures pacing all around him. He was tempted to take his blindfold off again and even went as far as reaching up for it when he heard Jack clearing his throat and reluctantly dropped his hand.

Gingerly, Daniel lowered himself onto the cold platform and heard the mirror hum as it activated under him, people around the chamber sucking in their breaths as the mirror cleared to another image without their reflections. Everything felt cold. He shivered a bit, fumbling to button up his jacket when he felt Jolinar's hands delicately pulling his fingers away and doing it herself. Flushing, wondering if his face was that obvious, he squirmed under the help, embarrassed he couldn't figure it out himself.

Hansen cleared her throat impatiently. "Doctor Jackson, shall we begin?"

"Give him a second, will you? He's trying to get his bearings."

"We shouldn't be wasting time. The Goa'uld may realize where we are since they were here the last time they caught you."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't remind me. That trip sucked. I want a refund."

Daniel bit back a smile at the wry remark. He heard Hansen sigh, exasperated. It occurred to him that Jack's dry wit had been somewhat strained during this whole time, nothing but reassurances from the colonel. It meant things must have been bad for him.

"They could be coming this way as we speak. It'll take them only a few hours to get to this destination."

Jolinar agreed over his head, "Yes, it only took them minutes to reach Tau'ri from here. We are very close."

Oh God. Daniel swallowed and shuffled in his seat, ducking under the DHD. He reached out, feeling the bottom, his fingers scratching smooth metal plates, looking for the thin coil he'd only had a glimpse of before they were captured.

"Found it," he called out breathlessly.

Hansen grunted. "Start tuning or whatever you have to do to get it working. Siler, run a line of explosives around here and the Giza. Set the timers before going through. I want no one to follow or have a trace of what we did here. Kawalsky, ready your team to- what the hell?"

Daniel paused, hearing the rumble of thunder above. He stiffened. "Jack?"

"No, Daniel. I don't see any lightning."

"What? What is it?" Hansen demanded.

"They're here," breathed Daniel, dread churning in his stomach. Too soon. Too soon. He hadn't even had a chance to dial yet.

"Daniel," Jack went over to the DHD and started slapping the panels above him. "Try turning that thing. _Now._"

Nodding, Daniel ducked back in under the DHD, vaguely aware of Jolinar's hand on his knee.

"What are you doing?" Maybourne asked as Jack continued pressing symbols.

"Giving them a busy signal," was Jack's curt reply as he didn't stop what he was doing.

Jolinar stood. "Here. I found these in Machello's place. They listed symbols like the others. I recognize some as safe havens used by the Tok'ra. Try them to block their coming through."

Daniel could hear Hansen barking orders for her men to get ready, soldiers calling out responses and affirmatives. He ignored them all as he slid his index finger across the coil, feeling it give under pressure. He pressed it, pushing it to the right.

"Kawalsky, take over what the colonel is doing. Grab his tablet and see what addresses we can try dialing." Hansen could be heard checking her rifle. "Colonel, watch that wall, tell me when it's okay to go. I'm giving you five minutes. If you can't find it then, we have to leave."

Jack surprisingly didn't argue with her, his footsteps leading to where Daniel was. He could vaguely see the shadow of his friend's boots in fuzzy light. Daniel swallowed the growing lump in his throat and continued.

"No, Daniel."

He tried again.

"Eh...not even close."

"Commander, we'd better ready some souvenirs for our friends so they can't follow us."

"Yes, sir. Siler!"

"Commander!"

"I trust you know what to do?"

"One Goa'uld surprise coming up."

_Come on, it has to be there. Somewhere._ Jack's negative reply getting more and more tense as the vibrations grew.

"Daniel," Jack gritted as he watched the Stargate light up after Kawalsky punched in seven symbols. He turned towards the portal, the reflections of over twenty tired looking rebels looking back at him.

Fumbling for the DHD, Daniel didn't have the time to respond. He felt Jolinar's gentle hand on his back now, making sure he was avoiding hitting his head on the bottom of the DHD.

"I can hear them overhead, Doctor Jackson!" Hansen barked from a distance. "We can't keep dialing the Stargate like this! Blocking the wormhole won't do us any good if they're above us!"

Sighing, Daniel nodded and felt his way around under the DHD. Kawalsky was still standing over him, on the platform, punching in symbols to keep the Stargate activated.

"Doctor Jackson!" Hansen barked.

"Keep your shirt on, he's working on it!" Jack hollered as he put a clip into his rifle. The weapon made a loud click as he did. "Keep your eyes on the sky! They've got teleport rings. They could be falling any second!"

"Another reason we should leave now! Two more minutes. After that, we take the first planet we can dial to!" Hansen barked back.

"I'm trying!" Daniel yelled, unable to sit there and hear them argue over his head any more. He gave the coil a slide to the left.

"No!" Jack hollered. "That's not ours!"

Another slide further to the left.

"No, again!" The colonel sounded annoyed. "Isn't there a redial button down there somewhere?"

Daniel didn't reply as he gritted his teeth and tried again.

"Nope! Unless our sky was purple! Try again!"

"You're not helping," Daniel managed. He blinked, tempted to open his eyes, but even through the blindfold, he could feel the painful lights searing his pupils, the strain of trying to see catching up with him. The lights felt too bright again, despite the fact he was under the DHD. He slid the coil once more.

"No, no, no!"

"Is your reality even there, Colonel?" Hansen snapped.

"What the hell do you mean by that? Of course it is!" Jack swore loudly. "No, Daniel. Try again!"

Daniel clenched his jaw, sliding the device over and over, pushing the coil like a dial for an old radio until finally—

"Shit," whispered Jack.

"Is that it?" Kawalsky asked, still pounding on the symbols. When the Stargate reactivated, he was heard fiddling with the tablet for more symbols. "Jol, I'm running out of symbols!"

"The tablet does not contain any more!" Jolinar reported, her voice holding a tinge of concern.

"Keep dialing the last one!" Hansen shouted. "So long as we give them a busy signal."

The building rumbled, and Daniel groaned as he slammed into the column under the DHD.

"Daniel?" Jack sounded worried.

"I'm okay." Pressing close to the underbelly of the DHD, Daniel waited. "Is that it? Is that our reality?"

Jack stared at the wall portal, seeing a Sam Carter staring at him, mouth slightly open. "Uh..."

The building shook again, a dark shadow looming from the distance showing through the ceiling cracks.

"Colonel." Hansen warned.

Daniel sat up with Jolinar's help. He yanked his blindfold off, anxious to see. He hissed as the lights scorched his eyes, not as painful as before, but still enough to make tears trickle down his face. He could see green shadows in front of him on the portal. "Jack, her uniform...what does it say on her uniform?"

Squinting, Jack approached the wall as Carter did. Both stared at each other, probably sharing the same question. As she scanned him up and down, at the borrowed flightsuit, another name on the tag, Jack did the same to her, drifting to the tag that said—

Major.

Daniel leaned forward, worried. "Jack?" He wiped the tears from his face, squinting as colors flared then dulled in a wild pattern of pain.

"They're docking!" Kawalsky shouted as the building shuddered under the added weight.

"It says Major." His eyes on Carter, Jack frowned when he saw her shoulders sag and realized she was looking at his borrowed flightsuit as a confirmation.

"But is it _your_ Major?" Hansen stressed as she spun around to her team. "Get in a circle. Siler! Get that bomb ready! They can pop up at any second now!"

Maybourne was shouting as well. "Captain Ferretti! Get that statue on top of the platform. Siler will have to tag it. We have to blow it behind us so they can't follow! Siler! How are those lines coming?"

"Charges set and ready!"

"I'm dialing up the Omega site!" Kawalsky shouted.

Jack was still staring at the group on the other side. How could he tell? How? Or did they just go in anyway? Hopping from one version to another until they found theirs? But then where would that leave Dan O'Neill's world?

"Jack?" Wiping his face of the still flowing tears, Daniel tried to see, scrunching his eyes with each attempt. He could see more colors and shapes now, vaguely, fuzzily but not enough! Everything looked like an out of control kaleidoscope, changing, twisting images before he could label them. "Jack? Are they?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Ferretti on the other side coming up to the wall as well. He could hear Captain Ferretti behind him, muttering a word of surprise before continuing on with his job. The other Ferretti was staring right at Jack. Then he turned around, tapping Carter on the shoulder. The major looked puzzled as Ferretti said something to her.

"Colonel?" Hansen was running up to him, glancing briefly at the other Sam with a pause before nudging him. "Either we go through the portal or the gate. We have to decide—"

"Wait." Jack brought up his hand. He stared as Ferretti was snatching something from the still puzzled looking Carter's hand, then something out of his pockets before waving them at Jack.

"What the hell is he doing?" Kawalsky spared a glance for the wall.

Daniel frowned, seeing a blur of flesh colored tones swaying left and right, realizing someone was waving at him. "Jack?"

The colonel broke out in a huge grin.

Ferretti was waving money.

Fifty dollars to be precise.

"He's waving me money," Jack laughed. "Hot damn! He's waving me money!"

"Colonel, what the hell are you talking about?" Hansen growled as she heard a low whine over their heads. The teleport rings.

Daniel laughed as well, a bit more tiredly though. "Ferretti owes Jack some money from poker."

The Ferretti from their side perked up. "I owed John two hundred bucks."

"Fifty from mine," Jack grinned, giving Carter a thumbs up. "Which is exactly how much he's waving at me." He turned to the others. "This is our reality."

Hansen didn't waste any words. "Okay. First team, go through, now!" She waved at them with her rifle while Jack was motioning his team on the other side of the portal to lower their weapons.

Puzzled, Sam didn't argue, her eyes drifting over to Sam Hansen, widening as she took in the stern features, the faint white scar. She visibly swallowed and waved everyone on her side to back away.

"Just go through," Jack ordered as one team hesitantly approached the physical appearing wall.

Hansen looked annoyed at him giving orders, but she only waved at her men curtly. "Go."

As soon as the first man touched the barrier with a wary hand, the wall flashed and was gone.

"Shit!" someone exclaimed from the back.

"Move!" Hansen shouted, barely giving the space where the wall had been a glance as she waved them to go. The rebels began filing through the portal.

Jack jauntily saluted Carter, his Carter, a bit elated at the sight of his world. The major grinned back, relief evident in her entire expression. She stuck her foot into the center of the portal space.

"Holding the doors for you, sir," she quipped.

Jack grinned.

"Teleport rings sighted!"

Jack spun around, his smile gone, his rifle up as he sighted the first ring stacking up on the floor, the whine of the teleport beam growing. Carter dropped out of the line of fire, managing to stay in the portal. Jack gave her a concerned look, relieved when he saw Anderson pulling her back, kicking over a helmet to the side of the portal border to mark the spot of the center. He nodded his approval as he shouted to the men behind him. "Kawalsky! Get off the DHD, put something on it, and get your men over here!"

Maybourne was pulling one soldier, yelling at another. "Starks, guard our rear. Siler, what's our time?"

Siler looked up only briefly before back to his controls. "I set it for three minutes!"

"You heard the man! Move it!"

Boots were pounding the surface, one by one going through the empty space where the portal was. Jack started to run back to grab Daniel, who was still standing by the DHD platform. Kawalsky was motioning others through, darting a glance back to Daniel and Jolinar.

"Just go!" Jolinar ordered as the third ring came down. She stared anxiously behind Jack's shoulder. "Colonel—"

Jack didn't ask as he spun around, yanked out the grenades from his pockets and tossed them into the teleport rings.

The explosion rocked the building, and everyone found themselves holding onto anything to stay upright.

"Target down!"

"Another ring at three o'clock!"

The shouting was tremendous. Daniel winced as he staggered back to his feet. "How many through so far?" he asked hoarsely.

"Only half," Jolinar replied in a terse voice as she returned fire with her zat. The high-pitched whine rung in his ears.

"Another at five o'clock!"

Jack swore loudly as he found himself running out of grenades. Explosions to the left and right of him were throwing his concentration, the billowing smoke from the bombs clouding his vision. He could see the rebels running around him, many mimicking what he was doing, but the rings were dropping down as fast as he could blow them up. More and more Jaffa were appearing who could now see the other side of the chamber.

"Colonel!" his Carter shouted, pointing behind him. She was still standing on the edge of the portal boundaries.

The Stargate was lighting. More rings dropped near the Stargate.

"Clock's ticking, everyone!" Siler hollered.

"Come with me, Dan-yel," Jolinar said, grabbing Daniel's arm.

The scientist looked torn, wanting to help and not be led around like walking wounded, but resigned to the fact that even though his vision was returning, it wasn't enough. Staggering to his feet, he leaned against Jolinar a little, and they proceeded straight for the portal.

"I have a visual!" a soldier shouted as a blue beam materialized within one of the rings.

"Stargate engaged!"

"Incoming!"

"Daniel!" Sam shouted from the other side. She started to rise, her rifle out as she began to cross when she saw the column of light gush out of the alternate Stargate. A stray blast from one of the Jaffa landed inches from her boot, and she instinctively jumped back.

"Don't cross! Make sure everyone stays where they are! Don't risk crossing!" Jack hollered as he dropped behind a statue. "Daniel, take cover!"

Daniel found himself being dragged behind something smooth and metallic. _Statue_, he thought briefly as he felt the metal vibrate when explosions landed behind him and around him. He heard the Stargate, could vaguely see golden shapes of Jaffa running through it before another flash of light blew those colors away. He winced, turning his head, the light scorching his retinas. He hastily wiped the pain induced tears away and concentrated on watching the portal for an opening to escape.

"Hah!" Jack shouted triumphantly. "Try a different door, asshole!" He yelped when another explosion too close to his vicinity sent him sprawling on his back. "Carter!"

Sam didn't question. She threw. A zat gun crossed the border, Jack catching it neatly between his hands. Now Daniel could hear the whines of the zat mixed with explosions and alien shouting. He coughed, the smoke building, and he could see more figures running for the portal as his eyes focused, returning more and more of his vision.

In the midst of the noise, something beeped loudly.

"One minute! One minute before the charges blow!" Siler hollered.

"Get something for that Stargate!" Jack was shouting. "Before they dial up again!"

"I got charges already set! It goes when we go!" Siler yelled. He was forced to duck when a stray Jaffa from an out of reach teleport ring appeared, firing wildly.

Sam whistled loudly. "Colonel, everyone else is through!"

"Dan-yel," Jolinar grabbed Daniel, hauling him up to his feet. "We have to—"

A loud boom blasted close to Daniel's ears, and he found himself on the ground again. He blinked, suddenly able to see his hands in front of him, blurred but still defined. Another explosion, very close, made him move those hands over his head with a yelp.

"Daniel!"

"Jolinar!"

"Shit!" Loud gunfire and zats interrupted what Jack was going to say.

Another beep.

"Fifty seconds!"

"Move it!" Kawalsky grabbed Siler, and they dove for the portal.

Daniel lifted his head and blearily saw a mess of dark hair spilling out from a hood, onto a back, surprisingly slender compared to the strength she showed. He gritted his teeth, pulling at her arms. The Tok'ra moaned, head slumped down to her chest.

Jack grabbed Daniel by the arm. "You okay?" He didn't wait for an answer. His head jerked up when he heard the bomb by the DHD platform beep thirty seconds. He waved wildly at the stray soldiers. "Go! The plastique will do the rest!" He could see two more rings materializing. He went around Daniel, hauling Jolinar over his shoulders roughly, no apologies as he ran for the portal, one hand gripping Daniel's forearm.

The detonator beeped once. Twenty seconds.

Daniel could see Sam's face, wavering like a mirage from a distance, then close by. He gritted his teeth, willing himself to run faster, stay alert, and ignore the shouts of Jaffa as they arrived through the teleport rings. He felt the room tremble, assaulted from staff weapons and its own crumbling exterior. Daniel felt Jack stumble, dragging Daniel with him before he saw another face, a mirror image of Jack, grabbing him with a terse smile before hauling him to his feet, closer and closer to the blurred familiar faces behind the portal.

Time disappeared.

An explosion, heat, fire, blew at his back, and Daniel found himself sailing across the last few inches through space, into another body, before landing hard to the ground.

"Close the portal! Get off that platform! Kick that helmet out of there!" Sam was shouting. But was it the Sam he knew? Had they made it? "Daniel, are you okay?" He could see her concerned face flickering in and out.

"Next explosion in five!"

They're materializing! I see five guards!"

"Three seconds!"

"We've been sighted!"

No! Daniel raised his head, panicked. They couldn't find out about this reality. They had to shut it down. He opened his mouth before he felt a hand roughly shoving his head down again to the ground.

Daniel felt another wave of heat as shrapnel from the other reality flew across to theirs.

"Heads up! Incoming!"

"Get back from the wall!"

"Targets down!"

And suddenly...silence.

"Portal down on their side, Major Carter," Anderson reported.

Daniel heard Ferretti, at this point he couldn't tell which one, asking warily. "Can they still see us?"

"No, our bomb took out the statue from the platform. If anyone comes down again, all they'll see is a mirror and nothing more."

_Thank God_, Daniel thought, shuddering, still on the ground, too breathless to comment aloud.

"Good work, Sergeant," Maybourne said as a collective sigh of relief went around the chamber.

Anderson sighed once more. "There goes my helmet."

Straining his eyes, Daniel twisted his head and looked behind him. He could dimly make out a lone helmet standing by the mirror on the other side, clean, unmarred, amidst the charred spots of battle all over the chamber. He dropped his head, eyes aching as if he could still feel the sting of smoke.

Someone chuckled in the back. "Isn't that the third helmet you've lost this year, Anderson?"

"Shut up," he groaned. Strained laughter swept the area.

Ferretti cleared his throat. "Booker. Get off the platform. Turn off portal."

"Turning off portal!" another confirmed.

And Daniel raised his head higher. He saw dark brown eyes gazing back at him. "Jack?" he murmured, blinking to focus.

"Over here," Jack groaned to his far left. Daniel turned his head and saw him half sprawled over Jolinar, the Tok'ra lying prone and motionless on the ground. Jack grimaced, waving at Carter, who was getting up with the help of two other soldiers, dressed in olive fatigues, not the blue flightsuits. "Nice catch, Carter."

Carter groaned, massaging her neck. "All in the line of duty, sir. Glad I could act as your landing cushion." She grimaced with a hand going to her spine. "We're glad you're back, sir. You were sorely missed."

"Aw, you shouldn't say that! I'm a softie for that kind of mush!"

Sam grumbled, groaning again as she massaged one sore spot. "Not that soft, sir."

They were back. Their reality. Daniel choked down the hysterical laughter and rubbed his eyes, relief washing over him.

"Hey."

Daniel turned to a pair of dark brown eyes and realized finally it was John O'Neill.

"Yeah, it's me," John smiled wanly. His smile faded when he caught sight of the small bloody spots on either side of his temples. "What the?" He stopped himself and silently extended his hand to Daniel to help him. He glared out of the corner of his eyes though, right at Jack, who was starting to rise.

"Thanks," Daniel croaked. He pushed up on his hands, getting up gingerly, letting John help him most of the way. Wondering why everyone was quiet, he squinted, rubbing his eyes as the colors were slowly solidifying into shapes. Blearily, he saw the rebels were studying the soldiers from his reality. They were staring at each other, some touching their own jaws as if to verify the likeness.

Jack, meanwhile, snorted as he stood, making way for Kawalsky to check on Jolinar. "She got the wind knocked out of her, Captain. She's fine." He looked over to Daniel with a frown, though.

Puzzled, Daniel gestured towards himself. "I'm okay, Jack."

Carter's gaze went from Jack to Daniel, looking confused as well. "Sir?"

Jack only looked at Carter, then back at Jolinar, who was moaning, beginning to stir.

Looking down at the Tok'ra who was turning and trying to get up, Sam's eyes widened, and then they also darted to Daniel.

Confused, growing irritated at the worried looks from them, and wondering why of all things they were concerned for him, Daniel staggered closer. "What? What is it? Is it Jolinar? Is she okay?"

"I am well, Dan-yel Jackson."

Daniel breathed a sigh of relief. "For a moment there, I thought…" His voice trailed off as she sat up, dark hair slipping away from her face, revealing the finely boned cheeks, the tanned face. His vision blurred for a moment, and at first he thought he was just seeing things, but his sight seemed to snap into instant clarity as if mocking him as her face shone in abrupt detail.

"Oh my God," Daniel mumbled, stumbling back. He waved hands off as Sam and Jack came forward to brace him.

"What is it?" Jolinar frowned as she rose. Her straight hair fell onto her shoulders, face blackened with soot.

_No, it wasn't right. Sha're's hair was curly, thick, her face clean and smiling. This isn't her. How could I not recognize her voice?_

Jolinar's frown deepened. "Dan-yel?"

_No, no. Don't call me that. Only she called me that. God, I have to get out of here. I must be going mad. This can't be real._

"Daniel." Jack grabbed Daniel by the elbow to steady him.

Staring at her face until it became too painful, Daniel blinked, his mouth slightly open. He vaguely felt John's hands bracing him from behind which was just as well. He didn't think he could stand on his own right now. He heard his name being called and painfully, he turned his head towards Jack. The colonel dropped his hand at the expression on his face.

Daniel saw Jack's concerned frown and behind his shoulder, the ghost he thought he had tucked away in his heart forever. Something hot flared up inside him. "Why didn't you tell me?" Daniel hissed, his face crumbling.

"Daniel—"

Daniel shook his head, looked over to Sha're...no, Jolinar, once more before staggering away.

"Sir." Carter appeared upset as well, staring at Daniel's slumped shoulders, at the way he nodded listlessly to the other soldiers welcoming him back, his return no longer a joyous one.

"I'll deal with it when we get home, Carter," Jack murmured, his eyes on the back of Daniel's bowed shoulders as he braced his hands on the DHD. He caught Jolinar's inquiring gaze, and he shook his head. "It's not you. It's something else."

The Tok'ra looked doubtful, her eyes moving back to Daniel's departing form, but she nodded, glancing at Jack to assure the colonel she would ask later.

John was staring at Jack with narrowed eyes, so intensely that Jack sensed it before he turned around and saw them.

"What?" he asked tightly. He was in no mood for this. The elation of coming back had deflated as soon as he saw the anguish in Daniel's eyes. It stabbed him in the chest, and while he told himself he thought he'd done this for Daniel's good, inside, he was beginning to wonder how big of a mistake it was not to warn him first.

Snarling, John spun on his heels and followed after Daniel, leaving them behind. Jolinar gave one more curious glance back to Jack before going after them.

Sam looked at Jack, then at Sam Hansen's face as she came over, wondering what that was all about. "Welcome back...sir?" Carter offered weakly.

"Thanks," muttered Jack before he jogged over as well, just as the Stargate burst into light, signaling they could go home. He stopped when Daniel, leaning on John's arm for support, went in right after Ferretti's team gave the GDO signal, not bothering to wait. The colonel stared at the Stargate, oddly feeling like he'd been cheated out of the homecoming he was looking forward to, shook his head, and leaped right in.

Sam looked at her counterpart, blinking in surprise as she found herself gazing back at a dirty faced Harry Maybourne. "Um...hi. I guess we don't need any introductions."

Hansen snorted as they walked towards the Stargate. She gave her men a cursory look. "Starks, get a head count. Stay where you are. Sir?" She directed her next question to Maybourne, who was looking at the two Sams with an arched eyebrow. "Your orders?"

The military leader gave the chamber a once over. "I doubt we can all fit in your base, Major..."

"Carter," Sam jumped in. "Carter would do, sir."

"Carter?" Hansen looked at her uniform, then at her hands. Her jaw clenched. "I see."

Sam looked over to her twin. "Huh?"

Ignoring her, Hansen nodded towards Maybourne. "We could leave half here, take the wounded with us. Someone needs to watch this portal and make sure the Goa'ulds don't figure out where we went." Maybourne nodded, waving a few team members to go through the Stargate.

"Last thing we saw were the last set of explosions taking down the Jaffa," Sam reassured her. "They may assume you went to another address."

The Stargate shut off, sending the chamber into darkness. Sam mentally groaned, running over again to reach out and dial the symbols, avoiding stepping on the platform and accidentally activating the portal.

Hansen stared at the reopened Stargate. She turned towards Maybourne. "We'll keep two teams here and rotate. Starks. Williams. Your team stays. We'll be checking on you in two."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Aye, Commander."

Sam stared at her as she approached the Stargate. She stopped and looked over her shoulder to Carter. "Major...I don't assume anything." And she went through without another word.

Carter mentally groaned, getting a sympathetic smile from the Maybourne double before she jogged up, nodding to the few teammates from her side who were remaining behind and jumped in after them.


	34. Chapter 33

**CHAPTER THIRTY THREE**

_He was barely aware of anything; the pain flashing out of Amonet's ribbon device devoured everything else along the path of consciousness. He knew he was kneeling, though, the gun gone from his hands, and her voice echoing in his head, making sure he promised._

_And he did._

_And suddenly, the sound of a staff weapon boomed from his left, traveling to the right, connecting with Amonet. She didn't make a sound. But he thought he heard Sha're scream in his mind before the ribbon device was torn from his face, the pain ripped away, leaving him devoid of senses for one brief second._

_He was falling._

_Falling._

_Crashing to the rug below, too dazed, too much in pain to straighten, so he lay there curled like a whimpering animal, eyes open in time to see Amonet...no, Sha're, fall down in front of him._

_Smoke coming out of her chest._

_Eyes glowing briefly before they faded._

_And he suddenly found the strength to shuffle over, still not getting up, keeping his eyes on hers. _

_Awareness returned to her gaze, and suddenly, for one brief moment, she was Sha're again. _

_"I love you, Dan-yel," she whispered. He couldn't respond- his mind was still screaming that this was not real, only another trick._

_Her eyes closed, her mouth stopped moving, and it stabbed him straight in the heart._

_She was gone._

_Sha're was dead._

Bursting out of the Stargate, the paralyzing cold effects of gate travel fading, Daniel felt himself falling, memory and exhaustion driving him to his knees. He gasped as the sirens blared without sympathy, announcing his return home.

Beside him, John turned towards the back of the embarkation room. "We got more coming in! Colonel O'Neill is with them!" He grabbed Daniel by the arm. "You okay?" John demanded, hauling him back up again, moving him out of the way just in time for their next arrival.

Jolinar.

Sha're.

"Jol," John greeted as he dragged Daniel away. Daniel turned around and saw her next to him, her face holding only mild concern for a comrade and nothing more. He forced himself to look away.

"Is he well?" the Tok'ra demanded as she held Daniel's elbow to help out. She jumped when Daniel's hand whipped out and grabbed her wrist.

"Easy, Daniel. We've got you," John began.

"You're," the archeologist croaked out. "You're Sha're."

John stiffened. "She's Sha're? You mean your—" He trailed off, looking at Jolinar with horrified understanding. "I never knew your other name, Jol."

Jolinar shook her head. "No, Dan-yel Jackson. I am Jolinar. Sha're is the name of my host."

"Host." Jerking away, Daniel stumbled down the ramp, not hearing General Hammond in the observation booth or Teal'c who was running up the ramp to catch him.

"It is good to see you again," Teal'c rumbled as he braced Daniel whose knees were knocking so hard he was practically trembling.

Daniel choked back a reply, hearing the others jumping out of the Stargate. He felt Teal'c's strong grip on his elbow, steering him further away from the ramp when he heard someone shout.

"Jaffa!" A dozen rifles clicked in response.

"Hold your fire!" John yelled.

"Lower your weapons!" Guards at the bottom of the ramp drew theirs up in return and suddenly Daniel found himself and Teal'c caught in the middle, the soldiers from his reality aiming for the rebels, the rebels aiming at Teal'c.

Jack burst out of the Stargate at that moment. He skidded to a halt at the guns. "Whoa! Not again! Come on! Lower your guns!"

Teal'c stood eyeing the rebels and the guns trained at him. He calmly pushed Daniel behind him.

"Back off your weapons!"

"Jaffa sighted, sir!"

"Lower your weapons!"

"Put down your guns!"

"What is he doing here?"

"I said put down your guns!"

Daniel watched as the yelling grew, beyond Jack's shouting and John's. Both men were demanding the other side lower their guns. He and Teal'c remained trapped at the center of the ramp with no place to go.

Kawalsky and Sam Hansen stepped through the Stargate with the temporary world leader Maybourne behind them. Hansen immediately brought up her rifle when she sighted Teal'c.

"God damn it, lower your guns!" Jack hollered.

"Doctor Jackson, get away from the Jaffa!" Kawalsky was screaming as more and more soldiers were arriving, their reactions the same. Piled at the upper half of the ramp, there was barely enough room for Sam Carter when she arrived.

"What?" Carter exclaimed, catching sight of Teal'c blocking Daniel. "Hold your fire! He's one of us!"

It wasn't clear what happened next, but in the midst of the shouting, someone panicked and tripped, the gun clattering to the ramp. Teal'c saw the tensed fingers, spun around and grabbed Daniel by the waist. The Jaffa vaulted over the rail with the archeologist just as everyone began swinging their guns around, looking for targets.

"That's enough!"

Hammond's commanding voice echoed in the PA system, grinding everyone to a halt. Surprised, the rebels looked up, more than one murmuring when they saw the general behind the observation glass, others nervously darting a look over their shoulders to Maybourne.

"Lower them right now!" Jack barked, the situation roughening his voice to a gravel rumble. "Both sides." He glared at the rebels and the soldiers down on the ramp. He pointed to the ground with an angry motion of his finger. "Now!"

"Put them down, men," Hammond spoke into the microphone, his eyes looking across to Maybourne with his mild surprise expressed by a raised eyebrow. But he kept his gaze on the rebel leader, letting Maybourne read whatever he could from his face in order to trust him. The other man finally nodded.

"Do it," Maybourne said in a steady voice.

Reluctantly, the guns lowered and Teal'c stood, helping Daniel up.

"You guys okay?" Jack asked.

"We are well, O'Neill," reported Teal'c. Daniel didn't say anything. He clutched the ramp rail, his eyes darting back and forth from the soldiers to the rebels. He looked frazzled, jumping over a ramp a few feet high wasn't exactly the welcome home he'd expected.

Jack and Sam breathed a sigh of relief. The colonel shook his head, glaring at Hansen. "Teal'c is on our side."

"Then you should have told us before, Colonel," Hansen grated, her hands still gripping her rifle. "My team and I don't appreciate coming into what looked like an ambush."

"One Jaffa, for crying out loud!" Jack caught Carter's look. "What? It slipped my mind, okay? I had other pressing issues at the time. I forgot to say something."

"That wasn't the only thing he forgot," muttered Daniel under his breath, not meeting Jack's scrutiny.

Jack narrowed his eyes but didn't say anything. He diverted his attention to Hammond behind the observation booth. "General Hammond? May I introduce to you Commander Hansen and adjunct leader...er... Maybourne?"

General Hammond, his gaze still on Maybourne, nodded. "Welcome to the SGC. Good to have you back, Colonel O'Neill. Doctor Jackson."

"Great to be back, sir," quipped Jack. He waved towards Daniel and a few wounded rebel soldiers. "Permission to go to the infirmary before debriefing?"

General Hammond raised an eyebrow. The colonel was always the last to request such a thing, avoiding the infirmary as if it were a Goa'uld itself. He studied the still quiet Doctor Jackson and nodded. "Permission granted. Perhaps your...guests would like to be checked over by the doctor first?"

Hansen stepped forward. "If you don't mind, General, I would like to get right on debriefing. We have pressing issues to face. Ra's coming in another three days and eighteen hours. I can't afford any delay."

Again, the general arched an eyebrow. "In a few hours, Commander Hansen." A flicker of surprise came over him; her last name did not go unnoticed. And judging by the shocked look on Major Carter's face, it didn't slip by her either. "Colonel O'Neill, report to the infirmary with any of the wounded."

Jack glanced over to Daniel first and nodded. Talking to Kawalsky briefly, he gathered those in need of medical attention and led them down the ramp. Before he reached Daniel though, John and Teal'c were already framing the archeologist like bookends, guiding him out of the embarkation room. Stopping at the end of the ramp, Jack cursed softly before remembering Hansen and the others. He twisted around again, tossing a weak smile at them. The visitors from the other reality were still standing there looking unsure of their next move.

"Dan O'Neill is here. Do you want to see him first?" Jack asked.

Hansen blinked at the question. Before she could reply, Jolinar responded for her.

"I would like very much to see how Dan-yel O'Neill fares, Colonel O'Neill."

"Yes," the commander darted Jolinar a look. "We _both_ would."

Jack winced. "Carter can show you the way."

Carter paused, getting ready to follow after Daniel. "Sir?"

He gave the major a look which silenced any protest she might have had. "I'm going to the infirmary." Rubbing the back of his neck, Jack waved them off and walked down the ramp, out of the embarkation room before she could ask.

Standing there, the room suddenly feeling very empty, Carter turned to her counterpart. "Um...I guess I will be showing you around...then. This way." She stared at Hansen as she walked past her. The commander stopped when an SGC soldier approached, requesting her gun. A few of the remaining rebels tensed as well.

"It's just procedure," Carter told her. "I can't have you running around with weapons."

The rebels glanced back to Hansen for verification.

"Do it."

Slowly, reluctantly, everyone handed in their weapons, some grumbling as they flexed their now empty hands.

"Come on." Walking towards the heavy doors, she gestured towards the opening exit. "We'll get your men cleaned up and rested, and I'll take you to see Doctor O'Neill."

Hansen nodded curtly, didn't look behind to see if Jolinar was following, and walked out.

Jolinar paused though, in front of Carter and bowed her head. "Thank you, Major-" She eyed the uniform. "Carter, is it?"

"Yes." Carter hesitated. "Sha're...right?"

"My host, yes. But I am Jolinar."

Carter froze. "What?"

Jolinar tilted her head, dark hair covering a part of her face. "Is there something wrong?"

"No...n-nothing. Let's go, shall we?"

Bowing her head once again, Jolinar showed her agreement. She walked alongside Sam Carter, not noting, or perhaps not minding Commander Hansen brushing by her to walk ahead.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

The infirmary, even when filled with people, was always a lot quieter than the rest of the base. The simple fact that there were those healing within its doors tended to make people more hushed, more subdued.

It wasn't the case today.

It felt like all the sound bottled up had burst into a cacophony—from the medics, the wheels of the gurneys screeching across tiled floors, and even the normally muffled sounds of the medical staff's shoes were loud.

Daniel winced, one hand over his ear as he entered the infirmary. Everyone's faces were blurred now, too many to focus on one and what once was a normally familiar scene which would have been balm to his soul was grating on his nerves. He was half tempted to turn around and leave. And he decided that was a better idea. So he did so by jerking his arm out of John's helpful hold, slipping around Teal'c before he could grab him, and heading for the double doors when another person walked in.

Jack.

The colonel saw Daniel's planned escape and opened his mouth to abort it, but John came forward and without warning, snagged the archeologist by the elbow, half dragging him to the first empty gurney he saw. The scientist suddenly found himself sitting on top of a gurney, amidst all the activity, hidden behind a curtain John had yanked around him like a shield.

"What happened? Warner demanded, ducking into the hastily closed off area, "What happened here? I was told of your return. What are these?" He prodded one of the tender spots on Daniel's temples with a frown at the spot of blood on his gloved fingertip. He touched the wounds again, concerned. "Are these—" Pressing too hard, Daniel jerked away from Warner's hands with a yelp.

"Watch it!" both Jack and John snapped.

Warner blinked. The doctor looked like he was going to take off his glasses to double check his vision but decided against it. He took one of Daniel's hands, flicked his wrist to reveal his watch and timed the pulse beating under his fingertips. He nodded curtly. "Looks okay. Doctor Jackson, I have to ask, are those the—"

"Yes," Daniel responded quietly, seated on the gurney, too tired to sit straight. "Yes, they were."

Either, the doctor had never heard of how these things worked or he didn't care since his face remained expressionless. "Um, hm," he just said as he motioned Daniel to lie back. Pulling out his stethoscope, he yanked up Daniel's shirt without warning. Daniel yelped again, this time more out of surprise than pain.

"Hey, where's Doctor Fraiser?" Jack asked, his head turning left and right for any sign of her.

"She's with Doctor Jack...sorry, I meant O'Neill, in his quarters. They've opted to just bring the material he needed there rather than have him move around."

"Is he okay?" Daniel asked faintly, flinching as Warner felt a tender bruise on his side.

"As well as can be expected. There weren't any seizures or any fevers as Doctor O'Neill described—"

Jack interrupted. "That's good, right?"

Looking annoyed for being cut off, Warner pushed up his glasses. "All things considered, yes. Now a deep breath, Doctor Jackson."

Daniel complied, staring at the bright ceiling as he did, his vision clearing once more. Not that there was anything interesting to see on the ceiling. But he didn't want to look about either, knowing full well who was to his left and right. He could sense both Jack and John hovering to his left, Teal'c in silent sentry duty at his right. But he didn't feel like turning his head to smile reassuringly or parrot another "I'm fine". His mind spun too fast to pause and play the old "I'm okay" scenario all over again. He probably wasn't doing a convincing job of it anyway.

"Hm...these wounds are healing a lot faster than expected. Although we need to take an MRI to be on the safe side," the doctor was saying. He slipped out a penlight from his pockets and waved it in front of Daniel's eyes. Startled, Daniel twisted away, the painful shine still too bright for his healing eyes.

"Put that away!" Jack snapped, his voice actually louder than the infirmary around them. "He's only started getting his vision back!"

"Interesting," Warner hemmed and hawed as he tilted Daniel's head to examine the wounds better, forcing him to stare at the two O'Neills standing by the curtain's split. He thought he was seeing double, the two wearing equally ferocious looking frowns. "Your vision was gone, Doctor Jackson?"

Swallowing, Daniel lowered his eyes until he could only see their boots instead. "For a while when I had them on."

"Um hm, and how is your vision now?"

Blinking, Daniel waited before responding. "Blurry...sometimes clear. It switches, but lately it's been real clear. I was able to see...see more clearly."

Warner didn't notice the frown on Jack's face nor the growing one on John's. "I see. Very strange. Is this effect normal for people wearing these...ah..."

"_Re'klya_," John supplied the term, rolling the last syllable in perfect Goa'uld. Teal'c arched an eyebrow, impressed, which John returned with an eyebrow of his own. He sobered, looking down at Daniel before continuing. "I think so. We had a few others who had that effect."

"Oh? For how long?"

"Until they died."

Both Daniel and Jack stiffened. Warner cleared his throat and got busy with a pressure cuff, making a show of wrapping it around Daniel's biceps. "I see. Well then, we'd better get you to MRI and have you checked out."

"Jolinar said the neuar she gave him should speed up the process, and he'd be seeing normally within a few more hours," protested Jack.

Daniel stared at Jack. "Sha're said that?" He felt relieved.

The colonel looked back at him steadily. "No, Daniel. I said _Jolinar_. She said the neuar should help. Different person, Daniel." His eyes bored through Daniel.

The archeologist turned his head away.

Warner didn't seem to notice the exchange. "Nevertheless, Colonel. We should have him checked out. Hm...pressure's a little low. Feel lightheaded, Doctor Jackson?"

Daniel turned his head towards the ceiling again. He said Jolinar, not Sha're. But she's in there somewhere.

"Doctor Jackson?"

Daniel closed his eyes and nodded. "A little. Thirsty, too."

"We'll get you some fluids in a second." The doctor peered over the curtain and called out to a nearby nurse, "Nurse Clark, when you have a moment, have him prepped for the MRI. I have to go check on the others. I'll be back shortly." Warner removed the pressure cuff and gave Daniel another quick once over before slipping in between the two O'Neills, exiting the area.

The three standing men were silent. For a moment, Daniel thought they'd left as he kept his eyes closed. He could still see her. Oddly, his memory's picture of her was clearer than his vision had been when he first sighted her. He could see her hair, straight not curly, thick and long with braids like she always liked to wear during their holidays. One time, she'd even—

"It's not her, Daniel."

He didn't open his eyes. He knew who was talking to him. It was the voice he'd had to rely on during the brief days of darkness. But now, he didn't want to hear the voice. Nor what it was telling him.

"It wasn't."

"It is her, Jack," Daniel said finally. "Sha're's alive."

"In _their _reality. Not ours."

It just wasn't fair. It was all he could think of. She was alive but with no knowledge or memories of what he and Sha're had had. A family they'd wanted to build before the Goa'uld.

"I didn't know her name," John spoke. "Jolinar never mentioned her. We've always spoken with Jolinar and never with the other one."

"Jolinar mentioned she would rather stay under and hardly ever surfaced," Jack said.

Teal'c joined in on the conversation after a long period of silence. "Perhaps she did not want to see the wars. It is unusual that she would prefer to release her body to Jolinar instead of sharing."

Daniel opened his eyes in a flash. "Stop talking about her like some sort of thing!"

Jack glanced over to Teal'c. "Daniel—"

Sitting up, pushing away the hands trying to help, he blinked blearily at the two O'Neills. "This is Sha're you're talking about! Not...not some unknown face or stranger!"

John raised his hand. "Whoa. We didn't mean anything by it, Daniel. But from what I understand, your wife Sha're wasn't a host to Jolinar in your reality. This is a different person like me and your grumpy pal here." He nodded towards Jack.

"I'm not grumpy," grumbled Jack as he walked over to Daniel. The young man refused to acknowledge the hand he placed on his shoulder. "Daniel."

"Why didn't you say anything? At least let me know what to expect when I got my sight back? Did you really think you could hide this from me?" Looking at his lap, Daniel shook his head.

"And say what? Huh?" Jack demanded. "What would I have been able to say? Sorry you're blind, but hey, you got a woman who looks like your dead wife playing cavalry for you?"

Daniel bit his lower lip, eyes narrowing. "Sha're's not dead, Jack." The anguish in his gaze was silently telling Jack to drop the mention of her death. Had it not been for that look, Jack might have left it alone right then. But he saw the longing. He saw it the moment Daniel set eyes on her back in the mirrored wall chamber. It was the same look Jack had had after Charlie died, and a walk through a park filled with children stabbed him in the heart like a knife. It was the same look Daniel had when he heard what Thor's Hammer could do. The same look that came over his friend when he ran from the Horus chamber back to the Abydonian Stargate chamber in hope that whatever was happening, Sha're would be spared. And each time, the disappointment was overwhelming in his face before the mask of calm took over. He'd be damned if he stood there and watched the same disappointment come back.

Daniel was still trying, hope steadying his voice to a strong, determined tone. "She is Sha're, Jack. And she's not dead—"

"She is in our world!" Jack shouted, almost immediately regretting his outburst. The hopeful look on Daniel's face had snapped something inside him, the restraint he'd held from approaching the subject of her death for so long unfurled as he saw the possibilities on Daniel's face. He could see the desperate hope birthed from grief and how loneliness racked his body like cold shivers. The mutual understanding of wishing for the dead to rise left him weak kneed, and his voice grew harsher at the reminder of his own past losses. "She is not your wife, Daniel! She is a totally different person. She's not the Sha're you knew!"

John peered around the curtain and found that some of the activity had quieted during their discussion. Some were curiously looking in their direction. At John's glare, they pretended to go about their business, but Jack's and Daniel's voices were going to get too loud to be ignored. "Uh, we shouldn't be having this conversation here, boys and girls."

Jack glared at Daniel, the young man refusing to hear a word he was saying. "You're right. We shouldn't. This conversation shouldn't be happening in the first place! He's forgotten about the battle we have ahead and who's coming in under four days!"

"That's not fair!"

Jack stalked over to Daniel, his anger, everything that had happened to them in the past few days balling into a big lump in his chest and releasing from his throat. He stared down at Daniel, who returned the gaze with red rimmed eyes. "It never is, Daniel. It never is," Jack whispered. He wanted to say more, but he found himself at a loss for words so he spun around and stalked out of there before he could yell any more.

The remaining men fell silent. Daniel sat on the gurney, his lips pressed into a thin, angry line, one arm wrapped around his middle, the other bracing behind him as if fearing he would tumble off the bed. Despite the red spots on his cheeks, he was still pale.

"Are you well, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c inquired. His passive face revealed nothing. However, there was a concerned gleam in the Jaffa's eyes.

"I'm fine," Daniel grated out.

"Maybe you want to go check on your colonel there," John advised Teal'c as he pulled a stool closer to the gurney. "I'll wait with him for them to take him to MRI." His mouth twisted in an ironic smile. "Been there before. I can keep him company."

Teal'c paused, thinking it over. Then he nodded. As he passed Daniel, he clasped the young man's knee with a large hand. "I am heartened to see your return, Daniel Jackson. You and O'Neill were greatly missed."

Looking up, Daniel gave him a tired smile. "Thank you."

Bowing his head, Teal'c glanced at John who nodded seriously. The Jaffa left.

Daniel sat there, his chest tight from Jack's words. Jack surely knew how much he missed her. He knew how hard he had been searching for her only to lose her in the end. And seeing her again was a mixed blessing. He felt like the absence between the time she'd been captured by Apophis and her death had gone, vanished.

He knew he shouldn't. When John and Dan came through their Stargate and revealed their world, Daniel had avoided thinking about her in their reality, avoided wondering how she was, who she was, and where she was. He told himself his wife, Sha're, was the one he knew and married. The other—wherever she was—would never be her.

But then he saw her.

And then she said her host was named Sha're, not her.

It was like being under her ribbon device all over again.

The swirl of pain and surreal awareness swept him away, and he forgot for a moment she was from another reality. And it was her again, under a Goa'uld's glowing eyes, screaming at him to rescue her.

Daniel lowered his head to his hands. He was so tired. The whole time, pretending the pain was minute, pushing back memories that had no business appearing, sitting in darkness with nothing but voices and imagination to rely on painting him a picture of his surroundings, was finally weighing down on him like a smothering heavy blanket.

"I don't envy the guy."

Daniel didn't look up. "What are you talking about?" he asked in a weary voice.

John sat there, arms crossed across his chest. "I can imagine how the colonel must have felt. I bet the whole time he was telling you everything would be okay, right?"

Daniel mutely nodded. Jack's reassurances were calming. He felt a pang of guilt as he recalled he never got a chance to tell Jack thank you for them.

"And I could imagine how hard it must have been, knowing what could happen to you, trying everything possible to stop it, then having it happen anyway." Looking very old, John stared at the floor. "I take it he had no choice, huh? He didn't just sit back and let them do this to you, right?"

"Of course not!"

John smiled at the strong response. "That must have been hard. Hell all around him, you to worry about, then to find out Jolinar was Sha're." He shook his head. "And he probably didn't know how to tell you either. I mean, you've been through enough already. He probably thought he was protecting you."

Daniel stuck out his chin. "He didn't have to."

"No. You're right. He didn't. But he's like me. We just can't seem to stop ourselves. Instinct, I tell you."

"It's different with you," Daniel pointed out, finally looking up. "You and Dan are brothers. Family."

John turned in his seat and looked Daniel right in the eye. "Sometimes family isn't just about sharing the same last name, Daniel. Know what I mean?"

Lowering his head, Daniel didn't reply.

"He did what he had to do to protect you. Or he thought he did the right thing. I was this close to beating him into the ground for what he allowed to happen." John raised his hand when Daniel's head shot up in alarm, mouth open to defend Jack. "I said this close. But I didn't." He sighed. "I saw his face, Daniel. It was like looking into a mirror. I mean really, _really_, like looking into a mirror."

"Déjà vu?" Daniel offered weakly.

Laughing sadly, John nodded. "Yeah." He glanced back at Daniel with a sad turn of the mouth. "You understand now, don't you?"

Daniel bit his lower lip but nodded slowly, the angry slouch of his shoulders still present but not as rigid.

Smiling, the captain rested his elbow on the gurney, staring at the empty space between the curtain and the wall. "Wish it was this easy with Dan," John sighed out loud.

"What happened?" Daniel noted the tired lines around Jack's counterpart's face.

"Nothing." It was John's turn to cover his face as he slouched forward. Voice muffled, he muttered, "He doesn't want me to come near him. He told me to back off."

"Why?" Daniel was confused.

"Why else?" John said bitterly. "He blames me, of course."

"Blames you?" Leaning forward, Daniel frowned. "Blames you for what?"

"What else?" John hissed, waving roughly towards Daniel. The archeologist brought a hand up to his temples before dropping them again.

Swallowing, Daniel could only utter an "Oh". He stopped. "He blames you? Where did you hear this from?"

"I got it directly from him," the captain returned. He sighed, shaking his head. "Hell. I don't blame him. I know it was my fault."

Daniel didn't say anything, his brow furrowing as he thought about it. It didn't make sense. It simply didn't. It didn't sound like something he would do.

_Then again, you're not Dan O'Neill. You're not that Daniel. You're not this man's brother._

_Just like this Sha're isn't the one you knew._

His shoulders slumped. Deep down inside, he knew. But for a brief while after he laid his eyes upon Jolinar/Sha're, it was nice to have that hope flare inside again. He felt almost like the old Daniel Jackson. The one who truly believed she would make it, that he would rescue her, and they would live happily ever after.

For the longest time, he wanted to see her face, her smile. And every time he saw her, there were tears, regret, pain before she switched to the arrogant glare of a Goa'uld queen. Only in his dreams, did she smile again. He wanted to see her smile so badly he could taste it in his mouth, like a lingering flavor of something no longer there.

And he saw her.

He was beginning to wish he was blind again.

Jack was right.

That was not and never would be _his_ Sha're.

His shoulders sagged completely. He could feel the hope stamped out in him, the dull embers tasting bitter in his mouth.

John mistook his silence as agreement and felt his chest tighten. Looking away from the young man deep in thought, he stared at the parted curtain, the uniforms bustling back and forth. A few rebels, uninjured and merely waiting for their comrades, saw him and brightened. Some nodded, which he returned. Some grinned, giving him a thumbs up, which puzzled him until he saw where their eyes wandered to first before doing so.

Daniel.

They thought Daniel was Dan—alive, seeing, well.

John gave a bitter, tight smile, his throat closing before he got up and pulled the rest of the curtain closed.

At the sound of curtain rings whizzing across the frame, Daniel looked up.

"I don't think your brother blames you."

John laughed; it rubbed the inside of his throat like it was coming out wrong. "No, he made it pretty clear to me."

"He did?" Bowing his head, Daniel pursed his lips, thinking. It didn't make any sense.

Had it been reversed, Daniel knew for certain that he wouldn't blame Jack. He bit his lip, head lowering. Then again, the colonel would probably blame himself. But Dan telling John this? Daniel couldn't see it. Rather, he couldn't see himself do that.

"Your brother's a very strong person," Daniel spoke. He fiddled with the cover over the gurney.

John nodded, thinking back to what Daniel had said. "Dan is a stubborn cookie. He tends to get into things heart first before his head." He glanced sideways at Daniel. "I have a funny feeling you two have that in common. Bravery bordering on stupidity."

Daniel mumbled, "I don't know what you're talking about. It seems like he has more bravery. He got through all those years and survived."

"He had his family to think of. Stuff like that supports a man for a lot longer than he is aware of himself," John murmured, his gaze distant.

Daniel studied John carefully. "Kawalsky told me about you as a...um..."

"Overseer?" John bit out the term like it tasted foul. "Yeah. I left my family to join those bastards, first as a slave for their damn mines. They told us they would keep away from our families if we joined willingly." He thumped his fist into an open palm. "They lied."

"I can see why you wanted to believe it though." Lying back down on the gurney, feeling drained, Daniel stared at the ceiling again, the white light reminding him of the white haze over his eyes. "I couldn't see anything, but the things I heard...around me...I was glad I couldn't see at times..." He closed his eyes but found darkness even more unsettling. Opening them again, his voice grew soft. "If I was given a choice, any of those times, to choose, have a chance to protect what family I had at the time, I would have taken it...without hesitation."

John chewed his lower lip. He saw Daniel rubbing his head with a hand, brow furrowed into tired lines.

"Can I ask you something?"

Daniel kept his eyes closed. "About Sha're?"

"Not really. I—" He stopped.

Opening his eyes, Daniel tilted his head towards John.

"About..." John took a deep breath. "Aw hell. You know about how I met Dan, right?"

Daniel nodded, not knowing where this was leading.

"June third of 1971," John murmured, taking note of Daniel's shoulders stiffening. "I was running away or trying to. Sitting up on that damn old oak, wondering which direction Canada was—"

"Canada?" Daniel raised himself up with an elbow. "Why Canada?"

"I don't know. I wanted to be a baseball player or something. How the hell should I know? I was a kid!" John glared at Daniel for interrupting. "Can I finish?" he asked wryly.

Daniel grinned. The exasperation was too much like Jack's to be ignored. It made the man look quite different from the burdened, sober expression he carried around like a heavy sign strung around his neck, pulling him down. "Sorry," he quipped lightly.

"I wanted to ask you; I knew Dan got out of that car and Lily—" John stopped at the name, seeing Daniel's face shuttered. "And she left him there." He rubbed his neck with a hand, wishing now he hadn't said anything. Maybe he should have just asked Jack. Surely the two men, seeing that they were friends, surely, Jack would have known something. "I wanted to ask you. What happened that day for you?"

"What makes you think anything happened?"

John was half tempted to shake Daniel. But instead, he placed a hand on his knee like Teal'c had. It drew Daniel's attention away from the ceiling.

"Let me see what's keeping that nurse," John croaked. "And get that MRI done."

Daniel stared at John for a long moment, appearing relieved that the captain didn't press the question. He nodded mutely and went back to staring at the ceiling again.

Getting up slowly, his joints feeling like they'd swollen the past few minutes while his back bent with age, John made his way out of the curtained off area, resisting the instinct to run.


	35. Chapter 34

**CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR**

_Images reflected off her prison walls: when she'd first met Daniel on Abydos, Sha're in his arms, his rigid back when he screamed for his wife. Jolinar was seeing it all. _

_"I know where Sha're is," Jolinar said._

_At first, Sam thought she was speaking to her until she heard her own voice coupled with Jolinar's speaking towards the outside. To Daniel._

_"No!" she shouted, a horrible feeling grabbing her insides, choking her. "Leave him alone!"_

_"His wife has been taken as a host for Apophis' queen. Interesting." The images on the walls faded just as Sam lunged for them as if to snatch them away. She crashed into the walls of her mental prison as the room fell to darkness._

_"Leave him alone!" she screamed again, banging her fists on the walls. Jolinar paid her no mind as she taunted her friend with knowledge, demanding her freedom in exchange. "No. Damn you! Don't do this to him! Leave him alone!" _

_She could hear Daniel stutter, shock, hope, and doubt flooding his words until they were no longer the fluid flow he was adept in. She felt the walls fading under her fists, light making her eyes flinch. She scrunched them shut for a second. When she opened them again, she found her prison gone, the brig in view, and a pale faced Daniel fleeing the area, Sha're's whereabouts burning his ears._

_"Daniel—" Sam called, but it was too late. The door closed behind him with a loud clang. She stared at the barred door. How could she have let this happen? How could she have hurt her friend?_

_Jolinar whispered, "I'm sorry". She sounded almost sincere, but it was too late. Sam sank to her seat, realizing she'd been released from one cell to find herself in another, her friends, her comrades fearing what she had become. She'd never felt so alone._

Carter glanced behind to Jolinar out of the corner of her eye as they stood inside the elevator heading to the VIP rooms. While waiting for them to change into clean clothes, she'd opted to take the long route as a tour for their newest guests but found herself taking survey of them instead. The Tok'ra with her dark Abydonian features was staring intently at the elevator buttons with interest. Sam Hansen stood a foot ahead of her, arms crossed, back rigid.

Even though she shouldn't and knew they were two totally different people, Sam found herself comparing this Sha're to the one she'd met.

It wasn't until now, staring at the deceased's twin, that Sam realized she'd never really known Sha're. The few chance encounters they'd had were with Daniel and Sha're. Carter had never really spoken to her. There were only glimpses of her as Amonet, never as Daniel's wife—

Wait.

She did meet her as Daniel's wife. Once.

_"We're about to have our evening meal, why don't you join us?" Doctor Jackson suggested, looking right at the colonel. Sha're nodded her agreement under the curve of Jackson's embracing arm._

_Sam was rocking on her heels, still staring at the device dead center of the chamber. If only she had brought a few more instruments! She hadn't suspected anything like this. The reports accounting Colonel O'Neill's mission had mentioned a backwater civilization. Electricity hadn't been discovered here. _

_She sighed. She eyed her surroundings, training taking over scientific curiosity. The chamber was dark, lit only by the torches around every other column. One exit and entrance had a clutter of pots and ceramics blocking it for some reason. She wrinkled her nose. She could faintly smell salty meat. Someone must have decided to double the amazing chamber as a meat locker. The scent of dried meat lingered around them, reminding her vaguely of a deli she knew in Georgetown. She swallowed, trying not to think of what kind of meat it was. She'd encountered worse. But for some reason because it was on a different planet rather than a different country, the meat smelled more pungent, stronger than it probably really was. _

_"Captain?"_

_Oh shit._

_Sam looked up and saw O'Neill's frown and realized the criticism was evident on her face. She schooled a more neutral expression but still couldn't help the disappointment she felt. She had dreamed of going through the Stargate since she'd first learned about it. She had expected more than the whirlpool nausea and ragtag group of natives pointing MP-5s at them._

_"Yes, sir?" She stood straighter, well aware of the snickers behind her from Ferretti and Kawalsky. _

_"Dinner. Does that sound fine?" O'Neill was still frowning, but he turned so only she would see it. She found it odd her gruff CO would be concerned about what these people thought. "I assure you it's a lot better than the rations we're carrying."_

_"Yes, sir," she blurted, wincing at how it sounded. She flushed under her helmet when she saw Sha're's dark eyes upon her. She hoped the Abydonian wasn't offended._

_Jackson didn't seem to notice as he stooped a little, murmuring into Sha're's ear. The woman smiled, her shyness gone as adoration took over her features, so bright and intense Carter found herself looking away embarrassed. When she turned back, the woman was leaving, fingers brushing against Jackson's arm as she departed. The archeologist shrugged to the colonel sheepishly and turned to follow her. His wife turned around and pouted, shaking a finger._

_"Hset kan neet Dan-yel. Shaffu na den."_

_Whatever she said made the young man blush, his ears tipped in red. It made him look a lot younger than his dossier said. Jackson sighed but didn't sound upset and shrugged to the colonel once more._

_"Trouble?" O'Neill drawled, eyebrow arched at him._

_Jackson smiled, shaking his head. "No. I was going to help with the meal, but as usual, she didn't want me in there."_

_"Burned the meal before?" Kawalsky quipped as he sat down on the stones, guided by a few natives. He waved towards the other soldiers to go ahead._

_"No." Jackson scratched his head, pushing his glasses back on his nose as he sat down too. Sam sat and found the colonel seated next to her, blocking her. A shot of irritation went through her as she realized he was keeping an eye on her. _

_"Dan-yel wants to do wife's work," Skaara called as he hauled rolled bundles of rags for the fire. "Father said if he does so, he will be married off as a wife as well."_

_Jackson flushed as some of the other natives laughed at what was apparently an old joke for them. He shrugged one shoulder towards O'Neill, embarrassed that the colonel had to witness the teasing. O'Neill smiled back, his low chuckle also adding to the cheerful noise._

_"Skaara!" Sha're was heard back in the cooking area as she and a few other women were hauling the large cooking pot over to the center of the chamber. "Ske ol tan Dan-yel eto neet!" She gave her brother a scolding look._

_"Sha sha," Skaara replied in a soothing voice as he clasped Jackson on the shoulder as a way of apology for the gibe before retreating to the back. "Net Dan-yel sum erto!"_

_A few more chuckles as Sha're maneuvered around the crowd and sat down by Jackson. The archeologist smiled, shaking his head as she murmured something in his ear, one hand slipping possessively over his forearm before getting up again. She stepped forward and knelt, stirring something in the pot. Carter thought she caught a glimpse of a claw foot and swallowed._

_"Hey," O'Neill muttered. "It probably tastes like chicken, Captain." He gave her a silent warning look._

_Sam fought the urge to retort back and only nodded. She nearly jumped when a slender hand extended a cracked dish. Looking up, she saw Sha're staring back at her. She gave the Abydonian a nervous smile._

_"This is sweet," Sha're said in an accented voice, her English slow and careful. She gently placed a flat, pita looking bread on her plate. Pointing at it, then at the pot, she smiled at Sam. "Dip in the broth when it is done. It is very good." She looked over to O'Neill with a shy smile. "Not like chicken though." The colonel chuckled. Sha're turned to look at her husband now. "Dan-yel...it tastes like...beef, no?"_

_Jackson nodded at the correct pronunciation. He looked proud, very proud as Sha're went around to everyone, telling them in a soft voice what everything was while the children hung behind to point to their favorite parts of the meat to their old friends. He glanced across to the colonel, his smile happier._

_"It doesn't taste like chicken?" Kawalsky pretended to sound shocked. "Daniel, how do you survive?" He laughed, Ferretti joining him._

_Daniel shook his head ruefully. He lifted his eyes and smiled at Sha're, who had paused for a moment, unsure if the jest towards her husband was out of spite or friendliness. When she saw his nod, she relaxed and even lightly tsked at Kawalsky for it._

_Chewing on the flat circular bread, Sam did find it to be very sweet and quite good. She could taste the nutty husks of grains in it and a light touch of what appeared to be honey. But the pot looked doubtful. With each stir of their spoon, she saw another claw foot floating by with an occasionally gawking head before it sunk back to the bottom. She wasn't sure about it at all._

_A bowl of breads was set in front of her, startling her out of her apprehension. Tearing her eyes away from the morbid stew in the center of the chamber, Sam found to her dismay, to be under the scrutiny of Sha're again. The native woman smiled, as if understanding, and discreetly placed a few more circles of the flat bread on her plate instead. _

_Sam felt like she should say something. "Sorry," she murmured. She mentally chided herself for her lack of diplomacy._

_Sha're leaned forward conspiratorially. "My husband could not eat it for many days as well. He told me it...freaked him out?" Her eyes twinkled._

_Sam laughed, Sha're joining her, amidst the curious glances from her fellow soldiers. She felt a little better now. _

_Bowing her head a bit, Sha're quietly piled another bread on her plate instead. She gave Sam a grin, showing she understood and was not offended. She pointed to the bread, then pointed to the pot shaking her head. Sam nodded once at Sha're. _

_"So," O'Neill was saying, the smile evident in his voice. "Remember what I asked you last time before I left? About you being sure? Okay?"_

_Jackson nodded._

_"I guess you are." O'Neill sounded pleased with the fact._

_Waving Sha're over, Jackson didn't hesitate to respond as she sat close to his side with a bowl of the stew. "I never regretted any of it, Jack." He cleared his throat, clearly embarrassed and waved towards everyone else. He opened his mouth and let Sha're pop in a morsel of the weird stew. She studied him intently with mild apprehension. Chewing it, he nodded, eyebrows waggling at her as she chuckled softly. "Mm. This is good. Bane wa. Everyone, you should try this." Jackson tore off another piece, made a face of the claw sticking out of the bowl, and munched on the flesh instead, avoiding looking at the foot as well. _

_Glancing over to Sha're, the wife winked back at her, and Sam grinned. _

_Now she could see why Doctor Jackson might have chosen to stay. Not because of the discovery of this place. Not just because of the people._

_It was because of Sha're._

"You have questions."

Looking up, Sam realized Jolinar had stepped beside her. Slick black hair, different from the Sha're she'd met long ago, was brushed back as Jolinar tilted her head towards Carter.

"A few," Carter admitted. "But they can wait."

"They'll have to."

She and Jolinar turned to see Hansen peering over her shoulder at them. Rather, her eyes were glued to Carter. A quick glance up and down and Hansen was facing the elevator once more. The soft ding of their arrival to the appropriate floor interrupted what Carter was going to say. As soon as the doors opened, Hansen strode out purposefully, leaving Carter and Jolinar scrambling after her.

Sam fumed. She told herself this was not Sam Carter, not herself, and made allowances for any possible differences they had. Heck, when Doctor Samantha O'Neill remarked about her haircut and about not being able to imagine ever going military, Sam could understand...a little about where she was coming from.

But Hansen...

The major paused in her thoughts as she walked ahead of Hansen to lead the way, a bit irked when she noted the commander made a point to keep up, as if they were racing.

Hansen.

Sam already knew which Hansen they were referring to here.

_Jonas._

"Here we are," Sam announced, relieved to see the guest quarters up ahead. She nodded to the guards present, twisting around to explain why they were there to assist Dan, rather than keep him prisoner, but the commander didn't bat an eyelash at their presence. She said nothing, only stood by the door, her left hand twitching, fingers wiggling.

A closer look and Carter realized it was a gold band, tarnished, nestled loosely on Hansen's ring finger that the commander was touching. Almost like a charm by the way she stroked the ring, lost in thought. Sam bit her lower lip. So many differences and they hadn't really talked yet.

She was beginning to think she wouldn't want to compare notes any more.

"Are we going in or not?" Hansen asked archly.

Sam suppressed the urge to snap back at her counterpart's grating tone. She didn't know what rattled her nerves with this woman. Perhaps it was the permanent angry scowl on her face that looked odd. Or perhaps the fact she didn't even glance around the hallways as they went, not at all curious about her surroundings. Maybe the fact that her right hand flexed open and shut over her hip holster, like she was feeling the emptiness where her confiscated handgun used to be. Maybe it was the scar, the nasty looking white line framing one side of her face.

Or maybe because she was _Hansen_ and not Carter.

Sam bit back her questions, staring at the guest door as Hansen stepped back. She noticed the commander stood away from Jolinar, who again, took no offense at her attitude. But Carter did find it odd. Judging by what Dan had hinted, Jolinar was a trusted ally.

Knocking on the door, she heard a faint "Come in" before she opened to the dimly lit room. She found Dan sitting on the couch, the tablet once again on his blanket covered lap, reader scanning a book the guards had helped him get, its text appearing over the tablet like Braille.

"I've brought some friends who would like to see you," Sam said softly, catching sight of Janet seated by the table in the dark, keeping an eye on her patient. She found it strange that the doctor was spending all this time simply staying with Dan, but at the moment of crisis, Sam didn't have time to consider the oddity. Now though, seeing her sitting back quietly, not even hovering like she usually would, Sam decided she would have to pull Janet aside to have a talk later.

Dan tilted his head inquiring. "Yes?" He sat up straight. "Is it Daniel and Jack? They came back? Are they okay? We heard the alarms and—"

"They're fine," Sam reassured him as Janet got up to go over to his side. "And they brought some friends over."

"Dan-yel O'Neill." Jolinar stepped into the room.

A smile warmed his face. "Oh my God. Jol? Is that you?" He got up shakily and stumbled a bit. Frasier took a few extra steps and was there immediately, arm out to support him.

Janet clasped a hand over his shoulder. "Easy. You know what I said about—"

"What is she doing here?" Hansen rushed into the room, snarling.

Sam froze, realizing she saw Frasier. But she didn't see _Frasier_. "No, she's not—"

"Sammy."

Hansen stood there, glaring at Janet. The doctor stood there, eyes wide as she stood by Dan.

"Sammy," Dan repeated in an exasperated voice. "She's not, okay? This is Doctor Janet Frasier. She's a doctor for this base."

Hansen remained where she was, her fist clenched tight. "Do you realize she looks like Hat—"

"I know. I know. But she's not," Dan cut in hastily. He stiffened and suddenly hunched over, coughing.

Everyone was around him in an instant. Janet waved them away as she guided him back down on the couch. Murmuring something to him, Dan shook his head.

"No. I don't need another one yet." Wiping his mouth, he heaved a sigh. "And hello to you, too, Sammy." Dan gave a weak grin upwards, not sure where she was.

Hansen sighed, exasperated. Surprisingly to Carter though, she had a patient look, shaking her head as she brushed past her and Jolinar to sit down opposite Frasier. She touched his hand, letting him know where she was. Dan turned in her direction.

"Hello, Dan," Hansen murmured softly. Sam was amazed to see her stern blue eyes soften, a sad upturn on her lips. "How are you feeling?"

Pausing, Dan didn't say anything at first. He then sighed heavily and slowly shook his head.

Jolinar spoke up. "We have a few doses of neuar left. We were able to take some before we were forced to escape."

"Escape?" That caught Dan's attention. He lifted his head, brow furrowed. "What do you mean? Escape?" His fingers hooked onto the commander's sleeve, and he pulled anxiously. "Sammy, what happened?"

Hansen looked at Carter, then at Frasier, her eyes narrowing as she saw her. Taking the hint, Sam pulled Janet to her feet, and they left the room.

At the click of the door, Dan tensed, wondering why people were leaving. His fingers curled tighter, tugging her closer towards him. "Sammy? Jolinar?"

Sammy had never found any reason to lie to him before. Even when she told him of how Jonas died. She saw no reason to lie to him now. "They found our main base, Dan."

His fingers let go, hand dropping down. Dan fell back against the couch, stunned. "No."

"I'm afraid so. Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson were rescued by Kawalsky and Jolinar."

"Thank God," Dan murmured, his hand going up to his face, and he rubbed his forehead. He sighed heavily. "They told me they got caught. I thought...I thought for sure..."

"They thought you and your brother were them or were...damn...how do you put it?" Hansen shook her head.

"Alternate realities, Sammy." Dan patted her hand near his knee. "I bet a few years ago, you would have found this fascinating."

"Yeah, right," Hansen snorted.

Jolinar spoke after a long moment. "We suspect our location was given away when a Stargate was activated."

"What?" Dan faced the Tok'ra's direction now. "Another? No. There was only ours. And the others were on battleships. Their coordinates are different. The only way they could have detected our gate was if—"

"If another gate with the same address was activated, dialing the shared address," Hansen finished in a grim voice. "Dan...We think the Alpha gate was uncovered."

"The explosives—"

"From what Doctor Jackson told me; short of a nuclear blast, Stargates are virtually indestructible."

Dan moaned, dropping his head in his hands. "So we lost the Stargate? And they may regained theirs? What about the Asgards? Did they tell you about the Asgards?"

"If we regain the control of the main Stargate, get through to reach the Asgards, your people may still have a chance," Jolinar said gently.

"Either way," Hansen didn't sound like she believed in that possibility. "We have to prepare to move everything to another location. Dan... We need what's in that tablet."

"Do you have the other half?" Leaning forward anxiously, he reached out and felt Sammy's hands clasping his.

"We do."

"Thank God," Dan breathed. He hunched over, coughing again. He waved the concerned hands back, too tired to even try and convince them he was fine. "Maybe with Daniel back, we can—"

"Dan...He was marked as well," Hansen broke in gently, her hand going to his back, rubbing it up and down.

"Oh God..."

"He is well now," the Tok'ra interrupted. "We were able to reach him in time. He is slowly returning to normal, but it will take a while. Perhaps another few hours with the aid of the neuar."

"No," Hansen finally spoke to her directly. "You said there were only a few doses left. Dan needs them. They have their nice, shiny infirmary. Jackson'll just have to suffer like the rest of them." Hansen squeezed Dan's hand. "He needs them more."

"Sammy, you don't mean that."

Hansen snorted. "Yes, I do. They have their _doctor_," she spat out the last part, "so they can handle themselves fine." She studied Dan, his pale complexion visible even in the dim light. "We need to ration yours. Just until we can find more without them realizing it."

"Won't...won't do any good," Dan whispered. He could feel Sammy's hand stroking his brow. He was so tired. Worrying over their counterparts, over his comrades on the other side, trying to feel like he didn't care where John was. It was exhausting. Now, in the middle of familiar voices, Dan felt his shoulders slumping. "Won't do any good, Sammy." He lay back, the cushions feeling like stones on his spine, but he was too tired to try and find the bed. He could barely stand. "No good..."

"Dan-yel, what are you saying?" Jolinar was asking.

"Dan? Danny? What are you talking about?" Sammy sounded so far away. He could barely hear her.

"The neuar...they don't work any more." Dan heard them gasp. A hand shook his shoulder, but it felt good to finally tell someone besides the doctor and the general. He felt comforted in unburdening his secret at last.

"I'm dying, Sammy."

There, he'd said it. He sighed once more and felt himself falling sideways towards the commander. He could feel her arms catching him, reminding him of a gesture of John's, and an ache throbbed inside him. He let himself float away, pretending it was his brother staying with him, guarding him against the pain and the nightmares. He could hear Jolinar shouting for assistance, but it didn't matter any more. He was so tired. So very tired. He just wanted to sleep.

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Staring across the meeting room, General Hammond realized Maybourne was thinner, older looking with a bone weary tiredness reaching his eyes. As he allowed himself to sit back in his seat, he felt his uniform folding around him from the movement. Out of habit, he reached down to the hem of the dark blue jacket to pull it straight when his eyes wandered to the worn fatigues Maybourne wore. Faint bloodstains spotted the fabric rather than medals. He lowered his hands from the uniform.

"Strange, isn't it?" Maybourne remarked. "I see you're a general here too." He smiled, lines around his face making the grin look forced. "What happens if either one of our men call us?"

General Hammond returned the gesture. "Perhaps we should have nicknames?" He grimaced, remembering an old name a certain Jaffa gave him. "I'm known as Hammond of Texas to some folk."

"A very distinguished sounding name," Maybourne said lightly. "Perhaps my people should just call me by my full name General Maybourne and you General Hammond."

The SGC general shrugged. "That's fine." He studied the other man for a moment. "Colonel O'Neill was here before. He told me about the base's destruction." Hammond leaned forward, lowering his voice. "How many?"

"George's boat had as many as seventy-nine, more getting in as we fought. Maybe a hundred. I'm hoping they were able to dive before he pushed the button. But-" Maybourne shook his head, breathing out sadly. "They had maybe only a few seconds before it blew. I honestly don't know if they made it out in time."

"Over a hundred," General Hammond murmured. His eyes were bleak as he looked across to the rebel leader. "That's a very heavy loss."

"We've lost more in other battles." Maybourne massaged his temples wearily; the stiff posture he sported when he came through their Stargate had all but vanished. Hammond saw only a very tired, very drained man. Then suddenly, Maybourne straightened, his tone deeper, firmer. "The base though was a sore loss. The other bases weren't as secure as this one. The Goa'ulds hate the cold, but apparently not enough to try and cross over to us." The rebel leader shook his head. "I got maybe a little over sixty who survived and went to our other sites, twenty-six with us. There simply wasn't enough time to evacuate. They took us off guard."

"Colonel O'Neill also mentioned to me he suspected a spy. " Hammond could see the frown on Maybourne's face. "Do you think there is a spy among you?"

Maybourne pursed his lips. "I hope to God I'm wrong, but the evidence certainly points to it." A guilty expression crossed his wizened face. "And we may have inadvertently brought him to you."

General Hammond didn't like the sound of that. "What are you planning to do?"

Waving a hand lazily towards Hammond, Maybourne leaned into his seat, pausing as the cushioning gave under his weight. He made a face as guilt flickered in his eyes, and he leaned forward again, pinning his gaze on Hammond. "Your call, General Hammond. It's your base."

The SGC general pointed out, "I was told you were commander of your base and were part of SGC there before the invasion."

"For maybe two months before the Goa'ulds forced us to blast the base around it. Then Ge...er...the other you, Commander Hansen, and I had joint leadership of the Beta base before George and I had to go into hiding with the other adjunct world leaders. We were drawing too much attention to the bases with our visits. We had to hide off planet with Jacob Carter."

Shaking his head, the rebel leader looked disgusted. Maybourne tapped his fingers on the table, absently brushing against the cool, finished surface. General Hammond wondered if he was making comparisons. But the rebel leader shook his head slowly. "But looks like that didn't work anyway. They used the vibrations to find us when sensing the naquada didn't work. We never had the time to set up a defense system for it. We never knew until a month before they arrived what the Stargate could do and who would come looking for it. We found the second gate soon after we received transmissions from Ra and from there..."

General Hammond didn't know what to say. He felt overwhelmingly grateful it hadn't happened to his reality. Nevertheless, his stomach churned at Maybourne's words. He found he needed to reach for the pitcher of water for the first time he could recall. Pouring himself a tall glass of cool water, he allowed himself a sip before continuing. "You're welcome to stay for as long as you need. And if you need addresses to safe planets that may work in your reality—"

"No offense, General Hammond," the rebel leader cut in. "From what you were telling me before, Captain O'Neill and his brother needed those...bracelets to survive this reality. Are you telling me you have over twenty of them to give out to my men?" He paused, catching the regretful look on his doppelganger's face. "No, I suppose not." He sat up higher, the fatigues he wore straightening out with a brush of his hand. "I can't do that, though. There's too many of my people left behind on Earth. _My_ Earth. And Ra's coming. In a little over three days and sixteen hours. It's the best chance, no, the only chance we've got. And I want a chance at him. Stargate or not, we need to reach him somehow and eliminate him."

Hammond cleared his throat. "In your reality, were we…"

"Friends? I like to think so. He was also the best damn base leader we knew." Smiling sadly, Maybourne gestured towards the window showing the Stargate and the embarkation room. "You—I mean, George, straightened my ass out a few times, made me see I couldn't run our base the way I had before." He pinched the spot between his eyes, lines of age showing as he closed his eyes for a moment.

"I take it the war feels like it's been going on a lot longer than it really has?"

Maybourne raised his head. "One day is already too long."

"What are you planning to do?"

Scratching his chin, Maybourne grimly smiled. "Find a way to sneak onto Ra's ship. Blast his ass back to Neptune." He rubbed his hands together. "And with the tablets, we've got a chance now."

"I don't think Ra was from Neptune, General Maybourne," Hammond pointed out with a soft smile.

"Yeah, yeah, George. So you keep telling m—" Maybourne stopped and stared at Hammond. He shook his head, amused. "Sorry. For a moment there..."

Hammond only nodded.

Arching an eyebrow, grinning crookedly, Maybourne casually asked, "So what's the going rate for a few hundred M-16s and a couple of nukes anyway?"

The SGC general chuckled. "I'm sure we can give you a nice discount."

"Wonderful."

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The shower should have been a liberating one. Jack let the water trickle down his sore back for the longest time, imagining it washing away the past few days as well. With a long sigh, he leaned his forehead on the tiled wall.

Luckily, with everyone running around since the day John O'Neill came through that Stargate, no one was bothering to take a break long enough to shower. It gave the colonel a chance to stand there and collect his strength, his balance, let the tension of staying alert and ready slip past the aching muscles, down to the drain below.

After a while, he stopped indulging and turned off the faucet. But he remained in the shower stall, feeling every droplet of water crawling down his back.

It was an illusion of routine.

After every mission, big or small, Jack relished the shower that came before or after the debriefing. He was the team leader. He didn't have the luxury of showing how tiring or how draining a mission could be. From beginning to end, he needed to convey the importance of the mission, the necessity of everything behind the mission and deal with the loose ends after the mission. But the shower he took became his version of Teal'c's kel no'reem, letting the big picture take a backseat as he reveled in the littlest comforts. Standing there where his mind could shut down, he could finally feel the muscles along his shoulders and back stretch and relax. One more mission done. One more day his team came back whole.

But this shower...

No matter how long Jack stood there, the iron cords along his back wouldn't release. They stayed taut, stiff, like wires strung too tight. Any minute, he would feel something snap.

No, wait.

He already did.

A flush of guilt made Jack turn around and lean against the shower stall wall now. He could still hear himself yelling at Daniel, a man who just hours before was blind, living a nightmare no one wanted to see happen in this reality, still reeling from seeing his dead wife.

_"She is Sha're, Jack. And she's not dead—"_

_"She is in our world! She is not your wife, Daniel! She is totally another person. She's not the Sha're you knew!"_

_"Uh, we shouldn't be having this conversation here, boys and girls."_

_"You're right. We shouldn't. This conversation shouldn't be happening in the first place! He's forgotten about the battle ahead!"_

_"That's not fair!"_

_"It never is, Daniel. It never is."_

Jack thumped the back of his head on the wall. Whatever had possessed him to say that? No. He knew. He was upset. A bit angry Daniel got to see someone he wanted to see.

Jack didn't.

Watching Daniel stagger away, asking Jack in a broken voice how he could not tell him, acting like it was the biggest betrayal ever made something twinge inside him. Suddenly, the reasoning he gave, convincing himself to tell Daniel later, was too little too late for him to say. All the memorized lines he was going to give rang empty in his mind so he never got to say them. And the more he thought about it, how he was practically bending backwards to avoid giving Daniel more grief, and then have that effort tossed back in his face, made Jack very angry.

It didn't make sense.

Jack, of all people should understand why Daniel said that. Why Daniel looked like he was betrayed. Hell, allowances should be made, considering all he went through, but Jack was tired, too whipped to make such considerations. He found himself wondering why Daniel wasn't sticking to the job at hand, why he was wandering inside his mind, lost in whatever memory he still refused to tell Jack. And why the hell did Jack even care if Daniel never told him?

Because Dan O'Neill would tell John.

Was that it?

Jack hadn't thought about it very much—the fact that they were brothers in another reality. But more and more, he found himself speculating if the Daniel Jackson he knew would have done the same things these past three years if he were Daniel O'Neill. He might never have been on this project. Hell, if Jack were his brother, he never would have let him go. And that Daniel would have never said that to Jack. Hell, he probably would have understood right off the bat that it was for his own good and made no fuss about it.

Scowling, Jack realized the point was they _weren't _brothers, and Daniel was not obliged to tell him a damn thing and would probably second guess every decision Jack made.

So, they were back to where they'd started: Daniel acting like Jack had committed some major, unforgivable crime and Jack feeling like they'd taken a step backward in their friendship.

Rubbing his face with both hands, Jack was tempted to shower again and see if the water did its wonders this time. But he knew he was wasting time, precious time they needed to recuperate, gather arms and return back there in full force. Hell, they beat Ra before with a scant remainder of the original team. Then again, he also had a few thousand angry Abydonian villagers running after them. But by God, they were going to repeat history.

_You're wasting time standing here. Get out of the shower, O'Neill._ Jack frowned as he realized he was already dry. He had been standing here far too long. He stepped out of the shower, snagging the robe hanging on the wall. Wrapping it around himself, a towel draped over his neck, Jack wondered why he still felt cold.

Unbidden, the memory of Daniel screaming, writhing on the floor of that room rose like a phoenix out of flames. Jack growled to himself, telling his mind to shut the hell up, but the image was so fresh, so clear, he had to stop and make sure he wasn't on that sub again. It was too close. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how close Daniel was to becoming like Dan O'Neill. To slowly slip away, lost in a prison of pain and torment. And he had originally wanted to wait. If he had, if he had refused to let Jolinar take them out then and there, Daniel would have been just like Dan.

Jack whirled around and thumped his fist on the mirrored wall that opened up to the locker area. He shook his sore fist, not one of his better moves, and headed for the alcove where his clean uniform hung.

As he yanked the T-shirt off its hanger, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Tensing, spinning around, his right hand automatically went for the sidearm that wasn't there, whirling around to—

Teal'c.

"What are you doing here?" Jack asked in a sharp voice as he turned back to retrieve his clothes. He could see the Jaffa standing in the shadow of the tall lockers, observing him silently.

"I came to see if I could be of any assistance, O'Neill."

"For the shower?" Jack joked. "Thanks, big guy. But I can handle that particular mission myself." He changed quickly, buttoning up his BDUs. He rolled back his shoulders, wishing the tight feeling there would leave him alone.

"You are upset."

Jack glanced at Teal'c. "Excuse me?"

"Upset about what happened to Daniel Jackson."

Snorting, Jack plopped down on the bench, pulling up his boots and lacing them. He swore softly as the laces tangled in his fingers in impossible knots. "I was worried, yeah. But I was upset about his attitude. He shouldn't be dwelling on the dead right now. We've got a job to do."

"His wife was lost recently. It is expected her appearance would upset him."

Jack scowled. The last thing he wanted to do was sit around talking about it.

"He appeared surprised when his vision returned, O'Neill." Teal'c cocked his head towards the colonel. "Did he not know Sha're was present in the other reality with him?"

"I didn't tell him," Jack muttered as he tried once more to untie the laces and get it right. They refused to bind properly, and he was sorely tempted to send his boot sailing across the room. But then he'd have to request another pair, and he doubted Supply would believe he'd lost his boot to temperament rather than on a mission. He grumbled as the loops knotted tighter. Would nothing go his way?

"I do not understand."

"Neither do I." Jack dropped his hands, neglecting his footwear. He sighed, shaking his head. "It took me off a kilter to see her, too. Damn uncanny. But it's not her. Not Daniel's wife." Jack gave Teal'c a warning look. "She is totally different from the Sha're we knew."

"I did not know her, O'Neill," Teal'c reminded him. "Only saw her face when I chose her as a candidate for Apophis's Queen. Then when she returned to Abydos. The next time we encountered her was minutes before her death."

"She's a gutsy lady," murmured Jack. He sat there, hands on his knees, eyes distant. "Saved our skins back on that planet. She got me, Daniel, and my men out of there during Ra's execution ceremony. Apparently both Goa'ulds like to do that: make a big show of killing someone. Took a lot of guts to go against every fear bred into her and up against a god. You have to give her credit." He stood up, clenching his fists. "Sha're in that other reality has a lot of courage, but there's something about her that isn't _her_."

Teal'c hazarded a guess. "The Tok'ra Jolinar."

"Maybe. But something about her doesn't feel right. That doesn't seem like Sha're. At least not the one we knew."

"I thought she never surfaces and allows Jolinar complete control."

Jack threw up his hands. "That's just it! We never met her because she didn't want to come out! That doesn't sound like the Sha're we knew. I don't want Daniel to get disappointed." Like the first time when he thought he could save her.

"Daniel Jackson is very strong. He persevered her death. He will see the truth of the difference in this Sha're and survive."

"Maybe," Jack muttered, frowning. He'd seen the longing on Daniel's face when he finally saw her. It just wasn't fair. Daniel had managed so far after her death. Why the hell did she come back and undo everything? "He's been off the entire mission. Something's been bothering him."

"Perhaps the appearance of Dan O'Neill and his brother proved unsettling?"

Shaking his head, Jack disagreed. "No. I mean, yeah. That would take him off balance, but not for this long. I know it has something to do with them. I just don't know what." He sighed, frustrated. "And I guess I took it out on him finally back in the infirmary." He ran a hand through his still damp hair. "How is he?"

"When I left, he was with Captain O'Neill." The Jaffa paused.

"What? What is it?"

Teal'c hesitated, and it struck Jack he'd never seen the Jaffa look so unsure.

"During your absence, Captain O'Neill and his brother have been often not together."

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

Standing there in the locker area, Teal'c looked like he wanted to pace, his feet taking a single step before pulling back. "I have often found them together, to ensure keeping sight of each other. They were very close."

"Wait a minute. Were?"

Nodding once towards Jack, Teal'c continued. "Now they do not speak to one another. Doctor Frasier remains by Dan O'Neill's side instead. And the captain had opted to join Major Carter and Major Ferretti in testing the mirror in hope of retrieving you."

"Huh." Jack didn't know what to make of it. "What do you think happened?"

Teal'c fell silent.

"Teal'c? Do you know something?" Jack crossed his arms. "This isn't some weird I-did-not-ask thing, is it? 'Cause I'm asking you now."

Teal'c regretted mentioning anything. He remembered his promise to Dan O'Neill not to tell them. And yet, their separation was upsetting them both, and Teal'c strongly felt the two brothers needed to be with each other. He found it disturbing, seeing two men who in his reality were very good friends suddenly not speaking to each other. Had it been this reality, Teal'c felt he would have known what to do or who to seek for assistance. But now...He was at a loss. He had made a promise.

"I'm waiting." Jack pursed his lips.

"I gave my word."

Jack arched an eyebrow, his own problems forgotten. "To who? The captain?"

The Jaffa slowly shook his head.

"I see." Walking up to Teal'c, Jack stared seriously at him. "Is this something I should be concerned with in regard to our mission to help them?"

Pondering it for a moment, Teal'c shook his head.

"Okay. Is this more of a...personal issue?"

"I believe it is, O'Neill."

Nodding, deep in thought, Jack folded his arms, his head bowed. Lifting his eyes, he sighed. "Is this something to do with Dan's condition?"

"I promised I would not mention this to his brother, O'Neill."

Bingo, Jack thought triumphantly. "Ah! But ya didn't say you wouldn't tell me, right?"

Teal'c thought it over. It was true. He hadn't.

Jack smugly leaned back against the opposite row of lockers, taking care not to press too hard on his back. "Well?"

Teal'c found he could not keep silent. This was one promise he must break. And he hoped Dan O'Neill would be as forgiving and understanding as his friend Daniel Jackson.

"This rift is Dan O'Neill's doing. He did not wish for his brother to remain by him."

Jack stilled; the satisfied feeling of getting the secret out was no longer there. He motioned Teal'c to sit down on the bench, and he followed. He sat there, studying the Jaffa before nodding. "Tell me."

And Teal'c did.


	36. Chapter 35

**CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE**

Janet sat back with a sigh, avoiding looking at the group. Slipping Dan's hand back under the covers after having moved him to the bed, she took extra care to slip the blanket over the pale knuckles.

"Well?" Hansen asked tightly.

"He was tired. That's all. I gave him a mild painkiller. He should be sleeping for quite some time—"

"He said he was dying, that the neuar wasn't working any more," Jolinar interrupted.

Janet paused, darting a look over to Carter. "We didn't have any way to know this, but the morphine I was administering did wear off faster than it should—"

"How long?" Hansen interrupted harshly.

Frasier stilled.

Sam looked at her twin, then to Janet. "He was getting better. Janet's been with him around the clock. And once you defeat Ra, we can try a few more options to see—"

"I didn't ask you, Major," Hansen said coldly, cutting her off. "How. Long?"

Janet stared at Dan, avoiding looking at the spiteful glare the commander was giving her. "There's no way to tell. We have no idea of the later symptoms except by counting the ratio of nanocytes to blood cells—"

"Loss of motor coordination, numbness in fingers, then a gradual loss of hearing," Hansen spoke up in a flat voice. "Ruptures of blood vessels in joint areas, seizures, and then dementia kicks in." She sat down by Dan's side, her voice lowering. "Then their heart rate picks up, they'll feel hot and cold at the same time, they'll begin to think they can see when it's only hallucinations in their minds, the throat swells, and they can't breathe and if they're lucky..." Hansen lifted her head, her eyes dull. "They die."

Speechless, Janet sat there, staring at Sam Hansen. Finally, she slipped her hands in her lab coat pockets as she fought for composure.

"Does Captain O'Neill know?" Hansen asked out of the blue.

Frasier lifted her eyes towards her. Sam's breath caught when she saw the bleak negative. Hansen swore softly.

"Damn. Just as well. Last thing I need is him further on the edge—"

"How could you even consider that right now?" Carter burst out, outraged at the calculating tone. Carter's voice went louder to drown out Hansen's cold one. Did she _ever _sound like this? It didn't seem possible such words could come out of her mouth, yet here was a version of her, looking more upset at the possibility of her man risking their mission. How did she ever become this way? "We're talking about two brothers who—"

"Who will be one left no matter what we try to do!" Hansen snapped. "I have millions, Major. Millions, to consider. I know exactly how they feel!"

"Do you? Do you really?" Carter stood up, towering over her counterpart. She found herself getting angrier. She couldn't stop herself. The more she tried to find a reason for her double's behavior, the more she realized there was none she could discover. She couldn't make any excuses for herself—no. For Hansen.

"Ladies, this is not the place to—"

Hansen thrust a hand back up in the air, her wedding ring glinting in the lamplight.

"You're damn right I know how they feel!" She glared at Carter and grabbed her left hand, comparing bare fingers to hers. "_You're_ the one who doesn't know how they feel!" The commander dropped her hand and sat back down on the bed. Her back to them all, her voice floated out to them.

"I'll stay here with Doctor O'Neill."

"Shall I remain?" Jolinar offered.

Hansen snorted. "Suit yourself."

Jolinar didn't appear offended. She nodded towards Carter, a sad smile on her lips before she sat down on a stool near the foot of the bed.

Carter didn't know what to say. She absently pulled back down her collars, straightening her uniform. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came to mind. So she muttered, "I'll let you know when it's time for the briefing," and she went outside, motioning for Janet to follow. She doubted the doctor would be welcome in Hansen's eyes.

Frasier took the hint, murmuring to them how they could reach her later by telling the guard posted outside, but got only a nod from Jolinar. Sam stood by the door, waiting for her to leave when a soft voice called her back. Turning, she saw Jolinar walking over.

"Here," the Tok'ra murmured, taking Sam's hand suddenly, pressing two small objects into her palm. She numbly looked down at her palm. Two vials with light topaz liquid were nestled in her hand.

"Neuar," Jolinar explained.

Baffled, Sam stared at Hansen's back.

Hansen's flat voice floated over her tensed shoulders. "He doesn't need them any more, like he said. You might as well give them to the colonel and Doctor Jackson. We may need him to translate if he's willing to go back with us."

Sam looked down at the vials again. She smiled her thanks to Jolinar. It faded as her gaze drifted back to Hansen. Saying nothing, holding the vials with great care, Sam closed the guest room door behind her.

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Flinching, Daniel resisted the urge to panic when he felt the platform glide into the MRI chamber. He felt odd being here when only days before he recalled John O'Neill carrying his younger brother into a similar chamber.

A few beeps and hums surrounded him as he lay there in the claustrophobic space. He could feel the walls around him like a sarcophagus, a feeling he'd hoped never to encounter again. The platform he was on trembled as it glided back out. He resisted the urge to run, though. He wasn't forced into the chamber this time.

"Okay, Doctor Jackson. We're all finished here."

Daniel would have jumped off the platform and left like a shot if it weren't for the fact that when he sat up, the room spun. He hated this. One moment he felt fine; the next he felt like he was bound by a white haze, his limbs deadweights. Did this mean he wasn't better yet?

What if he went blind again?

Daniel frowned as his heart hammered loudly and his vision blurred. Determined to not let it stop him, he stood.

His knees buckled.

"Whoa, there." John's voice was next to his ear, followed by a pair of strong arms under his, lifting him to his feet again.

"Got up a little too fast," Daniel muttered. The white haze was still over his eyes, stronger than before. He was beginning to have trouble breathing now. He couldn't breathe. Why couldn't he breathe?

"Easy. Take it easy. What's the matter?" Daniel vaguely saw a hand waving in front of his face. Or at least, he thought it was a hand. "Okay, calm down. They said this would happen. Comes and goes until everything stabilizes. Milk run, Daniel. Milk run."

"I know," stuttered Daniel as he concentrated on seeing past the white mist to the floor, taking count of each step he'd taken before to lead him back to the bed. Originally, he'd hated the thought of lying in bed while a war was raging in another place, and everyone fighting when he was resting. But now, bed sounded like heaven, and he couldn't wait to get back on it.

The infirmary solidified then faded into a fog once more. Daniel scrunched up his face, fighting to focus, wishing he had his glasses. But he'd left them on the bedside, figuring he didn't need them for the MRI. He quickened his pace.

John was heard sighing, tugging him to slow down. "Listen, ramming your nose into every wall isn't going to make you get better any faster. Follow my lead, and we'll get there, okay?" He paused. "Don't you trust me?"

Daniel didn't know how to answer. He trusted Jack or thought he did until Jack decided to censor a little detail from him about Sha're. No. That wasn't fair. Daniel kept his back straight, knees stiff to keep walking, resisting the urge to extend his arm to touch and protect himself from obstacles. He remembered how Jack led the way, gentle hand on his elbow, both offering and giving him the chance to preserve his dignity by not voicing it out loud, not like this death grip John had on his forearm, painfully too tight.

"I just don't like to need help," Daniel confessed.

"I'm sorry," John said quietly as he turned, pulling Daniel along to move around a cart. He positioned himself in front of Daniel, making sure the stares the staff were giving fell on his shoulders instead. "Dan never seemed to mind. In fact, he used to panic when I let go. He wasn't used to being alone for too long."

"And yet he wants you to leave him alone now?" countered Daniel, trying to distract himself from the sensation of being lost, the room appearing familiar one moment, blurry and strange the next. Where was his bed? It felt like they were walking forever.

"I told you. He blamed me for what happened to him. To all of them. I never should have left," John explained, his tone growing tight, telling Daniel he didn't need the reminder.

"You left to protect your family." Daniel sagged with relief when he felt the bed and sank down on it. He heard the curtain snap shut around the area. He gratefully leaned into the bed and waited for the walls to clear and the flesh colored blur to return to a face. "I would have understood. I think he would have, too."

John said nothing, sitting there.

"You have to talk to him."

"We did talk." John relaxed when he saw Daniel blink, his vision apparently clearing. "Or at least, he yelled a lot, and I listened."

"That's not talking. That's blowing off steam." Daniel shook his head ruefully. "Believe me, Jack and I do that a lot. It never gets us anywhere."

"You guys argue a lot?" John frowned.

Daniel paused. "Let's just say we hold very different opinions."

John nodded. "Oh."

"Unlike you and your brother." Daniel gazed at the ceiling. "You guys seem to get along well."

"We're family."

Daniel closed his eyes. "Yes. You are."

John slapped a hand against his knee. "But that doesn't mean I know what he's thinking. He never tells me anything. Never."

_"No practice today," John mumbled between mouthfuls of candy bar as he rose from the bench outside the schoolyard. He saw Dan standing there, surprised to see him. _

_"Coach got some call so he canceled practice. Thought I might as well pick you up since Mom went to see that social worker Ms. Brenner again. We could walk home, maybe swing by Bob's store and pick up the new issue of—" He stopped when he realized Dan wasn't crossing the patch of grass dividing the school from the sidewalk, his head down, expression hidden behind his baseball cap. It reminded him too much of the past few days when Dan had acted like this, silent, sullen, which was why he'd decided to swing by the elementary school instead of home. _

_"We don't have to if you've got too much homework. Although I never heard of a third grader getting a lot of—" John dropped his candy bar when he realized Dan's jeans were torn at the knees._

_"What happened to you?" he demanded as he walked over to Dan instead. His younger brother shrugged._

_"Fell down," Dan mumbled, his head still bowed._

_John crouched and with his knuckle lifted Dan's chin. He whistled at the reddish bruise on his brother's cheekbone._

_"Fell down, huh? On what? A football player? Looks more like they fell on you."_

_Dan shrugged again and shuffled away. John grabbed him by the arm, stopping him._

_"Who did this, Dan?"_

_"No one," Dan replied dully. The boy fidgeted, the brim of his cap casting shadows over his roundish face._

_"Yeah, right. That no one's got a powerful right, I see. Who was it?" John stayed crouched there, waiting._

_Dan stuck out his lip and said nothing. John sighed, shaking his head. "Fine. Be that way. Come on." He got up and extended his hand, offering to take Dan's bookbag, but the youth shrugged and held on to it stubbornly. John glowered at the kid, wondering why all of a sudden he was acting so bratty, but looking at the bruise again, he figured it probably hurt a lot so that was why. So he made no comment, merely walked slowly alongside Dan._

_Discarding the idea of hanging out at his favorite store, John made for home instead, taking the usual shortcut through the park. Maybe back at the house he could get Dan to tell him who'd hurt him. Dan made no comment, not asking why they didn't stop off at Bob's as usual._

_"Heard Dad say you might skip the fourth grade," remarked John. He stuck his hands in his pockets, fishing for some change as he spied the ice cream truck parked a block away from their home. Maybe a bribe, he mused. Who could refuse ice cream? John never could when he was a kid. "Guess you'll be hanging with the older kids next year instead, Danny." He grinned when he finally found a dollar. He knew he hadn't spent all his allowance yet._

_"Am I?"_

_John stopped, his fist over the dollar bill. "Huh?"_

_Dan looked up at John, appearing very scared, blue eyes huge in his face. "Am I going to be here next year?"_

_John looked at his dollar. He didn't think ice cream was going to do it. He crammed the bill back in his shorts and hunched down to look at Dan. "What are you talking about?"_

_"Your mom went to see Ms. Brenner again," Dan reminded John._

_"Yeah, about the adoption papers. Why?"_

_"What if..." Dan bit his lower lip._

_"What? Dan, I ain't a mind reader—"_

_"What if it was to tell her she doesn't want to?" whispered Dan. He stood there, hands twisting the dangling straps of his pack._

_"What? That she doesn't want to adopt you?" John was stumped. "Nah. They just had to wait to ask your grandfather, and he finally wrote back to us last year, remember?" He stopped, wanting to smack himself on the forehead, having caught Dan's lower lip trembling. Of course the kid would remember. The letter wasn't particularly nice. _

_John wished he hadn't suggested they listen behind the shut door as his parents read the thing. Dan ran all the way up to his room and cried for hours. "Dan, don't be stupid. Of course they wanna adopt you. Mom said these things take time." He stopped, his eyes narrowing. "Did someone tell you we weren't going to adopt you?"_

_Dan shook his head. John reached over and gripped his shoulders, startled to see the boy flinch on contact. "Who said that? Was it the same person who did this to you? Dan? Who was it?"_

_"S-she said I was going back to her." Dan sniffed. He shook under John's grip._

_John was confused. "Who? I don't—wait a sec. Was it—Dan, was it her? Did she come back? Was she by the school—"_

_"I don't want to go back!" Dan suddenly shouted, a small hand rubbing under his eyes to get rid of the stray tear. "I don't want to. I want to stay with you!"_

_"Of course, you are. You just have to wait. Mom said the papers were almost done—"_

_"No, no, no!" wailed the boy. "She said they were going to give me back soon." He dropped his backpack, slipping free of John's grip and took off. _

_"Dan!" John shot up, alarmed. He snagged the discarded school bag and ran after the boy. He dashed across the street, relieved to see Dan was only heading for their house. In his haste, he nearly got hit by a car, which honked loudly, making him jump back. John babbled some sort of apology as it went by very slowly, not seeing the blonde woman curse at him as he kept his eyes on Dan in the distance._

"You got to pry the stuff out of him with a crowbar," muttered John. A chill went down his spine as he realized had he not cut school the next day to check on Dan, he would have never seen that same blonde woman make a grab for his younger brother.

John had practically seized Dan in a weird tug of war, yelling at the top of his lungs for someone to help. If the police officer hadn't come by...He clenched his jaw, refusing to dwell on the possibility. He could still hear that crazy woman as they took her away. He never knew what happened to her after that. John never needed to testify since he was too young to stand in court as a witness. Not that he cared at the time. Just so long as she never bothered them again.

Not realizing Daniel was still listening intently, he muttered, "Damn brat didn't even tell me Lily was stalking him for the past week until she tried to snatch him. Bitch broke his arm when she slammed the car door on him and—" He stopped, hearing the sharp intake of breath. He lifted his gaze and saw all the remaining color drain out of Daniel's face. Alarmed, he leaned forward, grabbing him by the arm. "Hey. You okay? What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

John let go, snorting. "Sure." Crossing his arms, he sat there staring at the edge of the bed. He twisted around and saw no one standing by the double doors.

"Who are you looking for?" Seeing no one was there, Daniel frowned.

"For a stubborn goat to show his face," muttered John. He thought the colonel would have come up by now.

Daniel said nothing, staring at the ceiling. He furrowed his brow, trying to distinguish the light from the ceiling; the bright blur seemed to wash across the entire area.

"Don't strain yourself. Give it time."

"Time we don't have," Daniel reminded him. "We have to figure a way back to your reality, contact the Asgards."

John frowned. He had spoken with a few of the rebels as he waited outside the MRI chamber as Warner had hemmed and hawed over the procedure, which annoyed the hell out of him. "The first gate is gone."

"There is the second gate."

"Sure. We'll just go knocking at their door and go, Excuse me, do you happen to have any Grey Poupon?"

Daniel gave a choked laugh. "Not exactly, but we could..." He hesitated. Daniel really couldn't think of anything right then. His shoulders slumped.

"I'm sure we'll think of something when we go back," murmured John.

"Go back?"

John nodded. "Some of the guys have been talking. We can't all stay here anyway. We'll have to take a chance at Ra's ship. Jol said the address for his ship would be there from the last time he visited our planet. We go in, knock the hell out of it and take what we can get."

"Not much of a plan," Daniel pointed out.

"We can't stay here forever either. Forty-eight hours comes around for these guys and," John made a slashing motion with his hand across his throat. Daniel swallowed and nodded. "We've got a day and a half left before that happens. I'm going to the briefing room and—Where do you think you're going?" he asked archly as Daniel pushed off the bed.

"To the meeting," Daniel gasped, wondering why his arms felt like rubber. A hand pushed him back down again, and he felt his face flush when he realized the gesture wasn't particularly strong.

"It's not for a few hours. You can take a breather first and let the last of the effects fade before you start doing gymnastics." John waited until Daniel finally eased back onto the bed.

"I am a little tired," Daniel admitted, closing his eyes for a second.

John raised an eyebrow high above his brow in surprise. "I never thought you would admit to that."

Daniel lay there, listening to the activity of the infirmary around him, and John shifting in his seat. He thought briefly that although Jack wasn't there occupying the seat he generally did after one of Daniel's mishaps, it still felt technically the same. He swallowed, a lump in his throat growing.

_"She is Sha're, Jack. And she's not dead—"_

_"She is in our world! She is not your wife, Daniel! She is another person. She's not the Sha're you knew!"_

_"Uh, we shouldn't be having this conversation here, boys and girls."_

_"You're right. We shouldn't. This conversation shouldn't be happening in the first place! He's forgotten about the battle ahead!"_

_"That's not fair!"_

_"It never is, Daniel. It never is."_

Jack was right. It really wasn't fair. Sha're in Jolinar, refused to surface, citing she had enough of the war and only wished it to be over. And then she'd dug a deep hole in her voluntary prison and stayed there.

It wasn't fair. No. It wasn't right. Sha're would never do that. Daniel knew it. Sha're fought with every fiber of her soul, to the end when she was able to pass her last message to him. He could still hear her whispering to him before all light, Goa'uld and living, died from her expressive eyes.

Daniel bit his lower lip, squeezing his eyes shut, wishing John would leave. He could hear her telling him how much she loved him. Over and over again and he wasn't able to tell her until her last breath rattled in her body and fled. He could only tell her one last time, over her corpse.

To see Jolinar, hear her call him that name, in that dual voice made Daniel wish he was deaf and blind. He didn't need to see this. Not when all his longing and regret surged up again and attacked him with all its bitterness and reminders of failure. He had failed to save her and here she was again, a stranger in a familiar body, unable to understand if he apologized to her, say he loved her, or even if he asked her to—

Stay.

Daniel wanted to ask her to stay. The intent was so strong he could feel the words moving his lips, mouthing them in his mind, imagining her saying yes, the glowing eyes subsiding and his Sha're's intelligent, loving eyes gazing back at him.

_God, why are you doing this to yourself_, Daniel thought, clenching his fists. He remembered John was sitting there beside him, and he relaxed his fists. Everyone had told him that wasn't her. Even John said that wasn't her. But Daniel thought Jack would have..._should_ have, understood. And when it appeared apparent that he didn't, the hurt became more pronounced.

"Hey." John tapped him on the elbow. "Can I ask you another question?"

Daniel didn't open his eyes. Too many questions. From him, from everyone asking if he was okay, from himself. Maybe if he pretended to sleep, they'd leave him alone for just one moment. But something in John's tone reminded him of Jack when he'd asked Daniel over after the first time he came back from Abydos after Sha're was gone.

"I just wanted to know..." John trailed off, unsure if he should ask, unsure about the response.

Daniel didn't open his eyes, but he finally responded. "What?"

John could be heard licking his lips nervously, shifting in his seat as if it didn't fit him. He cleared his throat.

"I...I heard you don't remember much about what happened...but...do you remember how you got those things? Was it—?"

"Yes," whispered Daniel. "It was her." Daniel absently rubbed his arms.

In as low a voice, John asked another question. "How did it feel like? The _re'klya_?"

Daniel opened his eyes, turning his head to look to where John was.

The captain gazed at the floor. "He never told me. Dan just said it was bad, and there were moments when they really hurt, but he never told me what happened or how it felt. I knew it must have been bad, but—"

"Maybe he had a good reason not to tell you," Daniel said softly.

"I want to know what he went through." The captain picked at his slacks. "I need to know how bad it was so I can...I don't know...help him maybe...if he'll let me."

"Are you sure you want to know?" Daniel turned his gaze back towards the ceiling. "It's probably better if you don't."

"Please."

Closing his eyes, Daniel gave it some thought. "At first...I didn't feel anything. They were like needles, like getting a pinch." He took a deep breath, his heart hammering fast from the memory. "Then..." Daniel shook his head.

"You okay?"

Daniel waved his hand, gasping. "Give me a minute." He felt himself being sat up, his head pushed forward to his knees. Daniel tried to tell him he wasn't panicking, but the gasping grew worse as the memory flared. He sat there, wrapping his head with his arms, trying to hide from the phantom screaming of his own voice from the pain, her laughter that sounded both like Frasier and like Hathor. He squeezed his eyes tight, vaguely aware of Jac...no...John, rubbing his back.

John sounded regretful. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"No. It's okay," Daniel wheezed. He took one deep breath after the other, feeling his heart slowing to a reasonable pace.

Daniel bunched his hands once more. _Calm down. You have bigger priorities, bigger problems to worry about than your own. Remember Ra. He's coming._ He squeezed tighter around himself, willing his breathing to slow.

"Forget I asked." John clasped Daniel's shoulder. The archeologist looked up with red rimmed eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to push."

"It was...bad," Daniel croaked. "I think your brother didn't tell you because he wouldn't want to wish it on anyone. Especially you. It was..." Daniel swallowed. "It was bad. You can't stop screaming once the devices are turned on. I don't know if it's something those things do or just the p-pain, but once you start screaming, there seems to be no end."

He could feel himself shaking. Even John's murmuring and the arm around his shoulders to provide some comfort didn't stop the trembling. He dropped his forehead to his knees again.

"It was like watching my parents die over and over again. It was like watching everyone I knew slip away from me, snatched away, and that pain became a solid form, stabbing me over and over again. You don't have time to breathe or think or beg. You just want it to stop or die to let it be over. You wonder why no one is listening to you begging for it to stop, but it just keeps going until you finally pass out from the screaming." Daniel felt John's hand drop, but he couldn't stop now. "Then you wake up and see...nothing."

John's jaw clenched. He saw Daniel take a shuddering breath and knuckle his eyes with a fist.

"That's why he didn't tell you," Daniel whispered.

John nodded, unable to speak. He lowered his head. He could hear Dan telling him in Daniel's words, but it was something that would never happen because Dan had never told him.

"Thank you," croaked John. "Now I know why he hates me so much."

Daniel's eyes flew open. "No! He doesn't—" He started, seeing a shadow behind the curtain.

John tracked his eyes and stiffened when he saw Janet Frasier standing there, her hands clutching her stethoscope, eyes wide and overly bright, the only color on her white face.

"Doctor Frasier. John rose, hands out to say something, anything, but the look of shock on her face faded as she stood straighter and gave him a nod.

"I didn't mean to interrupt. I was heading over to give Daniel a quick check. I read Doctor Warner's results, and everything looks fine. No permanent damage." Janet paused at the curtain opening. "May I come in, Daniel?"

Daniel bit his lip. She did hear everything. He nodded his consent and watched her cross to the bed.

"Your vision is gradually improving. I read the report. Your sight is now at 140/140 and should return to your original vision soon. Doctor Warner was a little concerned about your low blood pressure." She briskly adjusted an IV stand. Daniel found it odd she was setting up the IV bag herself. Usually, the nurses did such a task. "You're a bit dehydrated—"

"Couldn't really keep anything down," Daniel murmured. He looked around her and found John frowning at her back. Apparently, the captain could see it, too.

Janet didn't seem like she was stopping at all to take a breath, still talking rapidly. "Well, this should help with that problem." She probed Daniel's left arm gently, feeling for a vein for her to insert the needle. "There's something in it that will—"

"Ow!" Daniel jerked as the needle went too deep, surprising him. He didn't mean to say it out loud, but he was concentrating so hard on not flinching every time she touched him, trying so hard not to imagine glowing eyes on her that the prick felt like it hurt more than it probably did. He looked down at his arm and saw a small droplet of blood where the needle had torn out.

Janet blanched. The needle dropped to the floor, and she took a step back. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

Alarmed, Daniel sat up. "Janet—"

John blocked her escape from the curtained area. "Doctor Frasier—"

Bright eyes cast upon Daniel, pleading for forgiveness. "I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry..."

"It wasn't you." Daniel pushed up, raising himself higher to see her.

"Another reality, another person, Doctor," John told her. She spun around to stare at him. The captain gazed down sadly at her. "I think they all said it before. Not all realities are the same. There are differences. Yours...was a bit extreme."

"Janet."

Frasier turned back towards Daniel. The archeologist gestured for her to come closer, and she paused before finally approaching.

Unsure of how she would react, Daniel snagged her wrist and pulled her closer. The doctor gave a small gasp, trying to pull her hand back.

"It wasn't you," Daniel told her firmly. Looking at her, trying hard to forget the arrogant smirk he'd seen on her double, Daniel raised his voice to a determined pitch. "You are nothing like her. Nothing. I tried to reach her when I was there, but it didn't work. She couldn't have stopped Hathor from doing this to me like Sha...my wife couldn't stop anything Amonet forced her to do." He let go of her hand. Janet held it in her other, staring at him. "It wasn't you."

"Damn right," murmured John. "The longer I stay here, the more I agree."

Janet looked at them both and gave them a sad smile. "Thank you."

John waved towards Daniel who was giving him an amused look. John stuck his hands in his pockets and mumbled, "I'm gonna go and report to the commander before she bites my ass off."

"She was very nice," Daniel told him. John returned the comment with a disbelieving look.

"To you maybe. She hates me." John pretended to groan. "Damn woman would see me jettisoned off into space."

Daniel leaned back onto the bed, giving Janet a smile. "Hm, apparently it was the same with Jack. He was complaining about that too."

John grunted. "How comforting. I'll be back. Gonna check on the commander and Kawalsky." He gave Daniel another glance. The archeologist nodded, and he smiled tightly. He gave a nod to Doctor Frasier and slipped out of the curtained area.

Standing there, Janet slid her hands into her pockets. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay...getting there. I'm all right, Janet. I could leave right now." Daniel pretended to rise, knowing what her response would be.

"Since when are you a doctor?" Janet retorted, walking over and giving him a soft push back onto the bed.

Daniel pretended to sigh. "You know, technically, I am."

"Of archeology. Leave the medicine to the doctors, Doctor."

"Okay."

Janet muttered to herself, pulling out her stethoscope and reached for Daniel. She paused.

"I'm okay," Daniel said quietly, his smile gone. "And I know that wasn't you back there."

"Are you sure?" she murmured, touching his arm, noting the stiffness.

Daniel guiltily folded his arms across his chest. "Okay, there is a bit of a...reaction...a little memory jumping in, but I know it wasn't you, and I'm here and safe. This'll pass." He studied her face, her eyes glued to the needle on the floor.

"It wasn't you, Janet."

Frasier looked at him and finally, nodded. She cleared her throat and visibly stood straighter. "Well then, let's see how you are doing, Daniel."

Daniel relaxed and closed his eyes. Sealing away the memory of glowing eyes, he made himself lie still as Doctor Frasier went on with her examination.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Ferretti glanced sideways over to his twin Captain Louis Ferretti and Kawalsky. He found himself more drawn to Kawalsky than to his double. The two were standing there in the observation room looking at the Stargate with pursed lips.

"Saw it only once," Captain Ferretti remarked. "Think maybe around the time the first transmissions came."

Kawalsky nodded. "Didn't they send you to Seattle?"

"To rendezvous with the commander's sub, but it never made the point. Had to go underground when we heard what happened." The rebel Ferretti frowned. "Think it was a few months before I caught up with you guys after meeting with Catherine." He looked over to Major Ferretti, eyes glancing over the name on the fatigues. "Major, huh?"

"You could call me Louis," Ferretti offered the double. The rebel snorted.

"Funny, I was going to say the same thing." The rebel pursed his lips. "How about if you call me Louis? Wouldn't do if we call you by your first name in front of your men."

Ferretti thought about it for a moment and shrugged. "Sounds fine."

"Great, I gotta salute myself," Louis groused, but he didn't sound angry. He looked over to Kawalsky. "You don't have that problem."

"No," Kawalsky muttered. "I just got people gawking at me like I was a ghost or something. Didn't even need one of those things." He nodded towards his comrade's wrist where a thin wire bracelet clung snugly to the soldier's hand. Kawalsky stared at the Stargate. "Was it there?"

Ferretti gave him a puzzled look. "Excuse me?"

"Where I died. Or that is, my other half." Waving at the Stargate, Kawalsky grunted. "Daniel told me I died in the line of duty."

Studying the embarkation room, Ferretti gave it some thought. He'd been still recuperating in the military hospital off base and hadn't found out about Kawalsky's death until Colonel O'Neill walked in for a visit, still dressed in his formal uniform of solemn blues and told him. His eyes saddened. "Yeah...you could say that."

Kawalsky gave Ferretti a look, before turning back to Louis and shrugged. Major Ferretti shifted, not liking where the conversation was leading and cleared his throat. "Well, I'm supposed to be heading back out there and spell your guys by the mirror. We're going to try turning it back on in a few hours."

"Won't they see you?" asked Kawalsky worriedly.

Ferretti shook his head. "From what Major Carter told me, I think you gotta open it on your side to see through it. Like a two-way mirror. Only one side can see the other unless both DHDs are activated." He studied his double and Kawalsky. He solemnly extended his hand. "It was good seeing you, Kawalsky. Even if it wasn't under the best circumstances."

Kawalsky grasped his hand and gave it a firm shake. "Thank you. It's good to know we're friends here as well."

Giving a faint smile, Ferretti had no witty things to say. He scanned Kawalsky up and down, and the little smile faded, a sad look over his face before he curtly nodded and left. The other two stood there, watching the major go before turning back to the window.

"I hate this," Kawalsky murmured, ignoring the stares from the technicians monitoring the embarkation room, waiting in case any of the rebels or shift guards left on the other planet should return.

"What?" Louis whispered back.

"This waiting. We've got the tablets. I say we go and kick some ET ass."

Louis grunted. "You and me both, but we've got nothing left, man. Sticks and stones are all we have."

"If they crack the tablets, we can go and kick Ra out, rip up his lease."

Shaking his head, Louis sighed. "_If_ they can crack the tablets."

"Of course they will. Hey, even with only one Dan O'Neill, we got it beat. He'll do it yet."

Louis paused. "That's right. You were in the locker room with my twin. You weren't there."

"What? What is it? Spit it out."

A sad look came over Louis' features. The lanky rebel folded his arms in front of him. "I was swinging by to see him. Saw the commander there with Jolinar. He..." Louis stopped.

"What? What?"

Louis sighed. "I overheard what they said. They were talking. Must have forgotten to close the door completely. Guard thought I was the other Ferretti 'cause he signaled me to go right in. Walked in on their—"

"Damn it, Louis. Will you just get out with it?"

"He's not going to see the whole thing through, Charlie."

Kawalsky stared at his friend. "What are you trying to say?"

Louis looked him directly in the eye. "I heard them, man. He's dying. Nothing's working for him any more. That's it for him."

"Are you sure? Maybe you were mistaken—"

"No. I walked in, and they stopped talking about it totally. Something's up."

Kawalsky frowned, the words he was hearing not sitting well in his gut. "Damn it, Louis, you can't make speculations like that." He ignored the growing interest from the bystanders. "They would have said something. At least John would have mentioned something when we got here. He wouldn't have left us in the dark about him. This is Doctor Danny we're talking about here for God's sake."

"Maybe he didn't know," Louis pointed out.

Kawalsky snorted. "Now you're really going out on a limb. That's one of the stupidest things I ever heard." He threw up his hands and glared at his friend for thinking the terrible. He started to turn on his heel to leave. "I'm going to go over there and talk to Dan myself—" Kawalsky froze.

John O'Neill was standing by the doorway of the observation room, shadows concealing the features of his face.

"Cap..." Kawalsky trailed off when he saw John lift his head. He took a step towards him. "Hey. Pay no mind to Ferretti. He's got a big mouth and no brains." He ignored the elbow the other was giving him. "I'm sure he didn't hear corre—"

"He never told me," John croaked in a hoarse voice. "I thought we had time. He..." John abruptly let go of the doorframe he was gripping. With a blink of the eye, he was gone.

"Shit," Louis muttered. "I guess I was right." He didn't look happy about it though.

Kawalsky was staring at the doorway, mind reeling. He didn't know whether to grieve for Dan or for John.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

John didn't realize he was heading for the room until he was at the door. Coming to a standstill in front of it, next to the curious guard, John stared at the door for the longest time, hand up to grab the doorknob, swing it wide open and—

And what?

Ask if he was dying?

Ask if he lied to him?

John's hand lowered. He shot the guard a look, the same guard as before, one of the soldiers who bore witness to everything they went through in that room. He wanted to grab the soldier, wrestle him to the ground and choke the memory, every memory of what happened here, out of him. He wanted the guard to forget everything he saw and heard in this place.

Just like John wanted to.

Dan was dying.

The only family he had left next to him was leaving.

He had no one else.

No one knew where his parents were. Or Sara. And even up in those ships, if they were able to get in, they might not be able to find out anything about their whereabouts. It was him. And Dan. That was all that was for sure.

Dan was dying.

John took a step back.

Now he wished he hadn't decided to go and see his old friends, see how they were doing in this strange new world they'd escaped to. If he hadn't gone, he could have stayed ignorant of the fact that his brother was wasting away in a safe world with no cure, no hope.

"Captain O'Neill?"

John spun around and found Sam Carter standing there, studying him worriedly. He opened his mouth, wanting to say he was about to knock on the door, but he couldn't. He took another step back.

"Captain?" Sam frowned, wondering if John was ill. He was pale, drained of all color, even his eyes were bleak and dull. She reached out a hand to brace him, but he stared at the door instead. "Is everything okay?"

John blinked, tearing his sight away from the door. "No, everything's not okay. It never will be." He reached for the doorknob before jerking his hand away. Not looking at Carter or the guard who was staying back a respectful distance, John walked down the corridor without trying to enter the room at all.

"Captain?" Sam called out, but the man didn't stop. She looked at the guard who shrugged. Stumped, she glanced at the partly shut door. To her surprise, she saw a brown eye peeking back at her.

Jolinar.

The door widened, and the Tok'ra stepped fully into view. "Major Carter. You have word from your general about our next move?"

Sam shook her head, her gaze back on the hallway. John was already gone from sight, and she debated going after him.

"There's nothing you can do for him. For either of them."

Sam gave her a curious look, but Jolinar shook her head. "You gave the neuar to the others?"

"I saw Colonel O'Neill was heading that way and gave them to him. I...I wanted to talk."

Bowing her head, Jolinar opened the door wider.

"No. Not to her." Sam took a deep breath. "To you."

Jolinar stopped opening the door and stepped out instead, glancing over her shoulder to the people inside. She quietly closed the door behind her.

Sam didn't know why she was doing this. Not when there were so many things she needed to do first. She could have checked with General Hammond to see if it was time for their strategy meeting. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to another version of a Tok'ra who'd forced its way into her body, took it over, then died in the end, leaving this empty ache inside her.

"Could we," Sam still couldn't believe she was actually doing this, "talk somewhere private?"

Jolinar surveyed her, her gaze drifting up and down as if sensing something. Her eyes widened, and she nodded.

Sam didn't know whether to be relieved or apprehensive. She motioned the Tok'ra to follow her, and the two walked away from the guest room.

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_"You should have never said no, Chosen."_

_He could see her hovering over him, the smile she cast on him might as well have fangs showing through. Quietly, she leaned over, her deep red hair seeming to burn with flames as she pressed her lips on his mouth._

_He couldn't scream. He couldn't fight back. Something was holding him down, pinning him, helpless and trapped. He tried twisting his body away, her hands now roaming greedily on him, promising her next move would be very aggressive and quite humiliating. Her taunts about making more Goa'uld with his code of life rang in his head, accusing him of doing such in the past when they'd first met. Now, she wanted to do it again. _

_No. No! He couldn't let that happen. He bit down on her lip, knowing it was a feeble attempt, probably only angering her more but anything was worth it so long as she stepped back for a moment._

_A hand smacked him across the face as Hathor screeched. But it wasn't from her; it came from another direction._

_"Stupid useless…"_

_Lily._

_How could this be?_

_She shouldn't be here._

_He raised his head, but her voice had vanished. He couldn't turn his head but felt her grip on his wrists, an impossibly strong grip compared to his. She couldn't have anything over him any more. He tried to break free, escape from her, from the Goa'uld before him, but her hold was strong, the iron-like grip threatening to snap his wrist in two, pinning him down on a cold golden floor, refusing to release him._

_"Help me!" he screamed as he saw someone else watching, staying back in the shadows. A woman who only watched, her eyes glowing softly. He saw the face of his wife, wispy, faded, from a distance, once again out of his reach._

_"Lie still. All will be well."_

_Head whipping back, he saw Janet, her hand on the one squeezing his fingers. She smiled, tears in her eyes at his pain. "Sh...it'll be okay."_

_"Help me...please..." he pleaded. "Please..."_

_She smiled._

_Her hand squeezed, Lily's suddenly gone, and he felt bones break._

_He screamed._

_They laughed. Before they lunged forward, all three, pouncing on him with talons he never saw until they flashed before him, ripping him to shreds, the pain forcing him to scream again and again. _

_All pleas fell on silent ears, their smiles bloody and hungry. He could feel himself shattering, and the observer from afar had no pity or sympathy in her glowing eyes. He screamed again, this time for someone, anyone, to help him._

_He felt another hand now. One on his head, another on his shoulder, the others gone with a curse and a shriek, banished by its presence. Panicking, he clutched the hand on his shoulder, shivering, shaking, not wishing to be alone with the demons lurking in the dark, refusing to leave him be..._

Hands were holding onto his as Daniel twisted, gasping as the last of the nightmare faded. He could barely breathe after what felt like an endless scream finally faded from his mind and his ears. And then he realized that scream could be heard out loud.

Flushing, Daniel tried to pull away but realized he was being held tightly. He stiffened, wondering who it was when the person pulled away.

"You okay?"

Jack.

Daniel could feel the red creeping up his neck to his ears. God, how that must have looked, clinging to the colonel. Daniel ducked his head, suddenly feeling the stiffness of his neck from being curled up in his friend's hold for too long. He could feel the flush burning even hotter now.

The colonel said nothing, only easing him back down onto the bed, looking over his shoulder to the curtain to shake his head at a medic who was lingering there just in case. Daniel, at this point, wanted to curl up underneath his covers and just wait for this particular nightmare to be over.

"Here."

Blinking, Daniel focused on the blue vial Jack held close to him. He twisted his head a little, looking over his shoulder to where Jack stood with the offering. The colonel lifted up his other hand, showing the other bottle.

"Carter gave them to me. They're from Jolinar."

Daniel's eyes shuttered at the mention of her name. "What about Dan?"

Something flitted across Jack's face. "He doesn't need them." He walked over to the other side of the bed and sat on the chair, looking at Daniel's profile, the distant eyes. "Come on. We need you on this mission as soon as possible." Daniel looked up curiously. "We're meeting with General Hammond in a few hours. I was thinking maybe you could take a look at the tablets before that."

Daniel silently sat up and took the neuar. Jack smiled tightly and lifted his in return.

"Bottoms up," Jack said and tilted the vial, emptying the small container in a single gulp. He wiped the back of his mouth with a grimace. "Could use a little lemon."

Daniel drank the whole thing with no comment.

The colonel massaged his neck with a hand, watching as Daniel sat there, taking deep breaths. Already, he could see the lines of pain around his friend's mouth were fading, but the lines cutting across his forehead were not. Jack frowned. He remembered walking in, unsure of how to talk to Daniel. He was going to go and speak with John, maybe his brother, hell, maybe both, but then he caught Carter standing in the hallway, chewing her lip in thought. When he called her name, she looked up, hastily gave him the vials and hurried back the way he'd come.

Walking into the infirmary, Jack again remembered his words and wished he could take them back. But words once said were always irretrievable. So he stood outside the curtained off area with Frasier nowhere in sight and debated whether to go in to make amends. Would it only make things worse or would it be the usual get back to business thing?

Then he heard Daniel scream.

Jack didn't hesitate. He ran right in.

The archeologist was still asleep, screaming wordlessly, blankets twisting around his legs, further panicking him. Jack waved off the medics with a growl, yanking the curtain closed to preserve Daniel's dignity and went over to wake him. He reached out a hand, calling softly to not alarm him, touching him briefly on the forearm.

Daniel lashed out, grabbing his hand for dear life, shaking like a leaf.

Stunned, Jack stood there, Daniel clutching his hand, screaming for whoever it was to leave him alone, names of people he knew and one name he'd never heard of before. All the while he kept holding onto Jack's hand like a talisman, huddling close to him like a person seeking shelter from a violent storm. So Jack sat down and pulled him in, and wrapped his arms around his friend, waiting for the storm to pass, whispering to him how everything was okay. For long minutes, Jack did this, repeating it over and over again, morbidly reminded of how he'd said the same things to the same young friend as he suffered through the throes of the sarcophagus withdrawal.

He started wondering if this was helping at all when he felt Daniel shudder, finally waking from the torture his mind had dredged up for him. And Jack let go. Daniel was never one to run for comfort, for help, yet each and every time he did even subconsciously, it was always with uncertainty as if sure no one wanted to offer solace to him.

Jack always found himself being the giver; it never occurred to him to question it. He just gave it, sometimes even before Daniel was aware of needing it. He would sit there and wait for the young man to realize someone was here, ready to give a damn if only he was willing to ask. And Daniel never did. But it never stopped Jack from giving it anyway.

If only Jack was able to help with everything, then life would be good.

Jack wished he'd been there when Daniel had encountered the person whose name he cried out with such childlike fear. He suspected this was what he and Dan had shared before their fates split off to their different versions of reality. He suspected this was the name Daniel was refusing to say existed.

His fists clenched. He, by any right, had no justification to demand Daniel tell him who this person was and why she must have surely haunted his dreams ever since this all began. No. He had no right to ask nor did Daniel have any reason to tell him, but Jack would have thought Daniel would have told him.

Then again, the guy can get so tight lipped in a way even the CIA would envy, Jack thought. He eyed Daniel playing with the empty vial and knew the nightmare was still lingering in his head. The lines of pain were gone from the eyes and mouth, but the furrowed brow remained. And the shadowed eyes still stared at nothing.

It was what had unnerved Jack before. The eyes. They were usually expressive, always betraying Daniel, despite his denials. But when the devices robbed him of his vision, it was nearly impossible for Jack to figure out what was going on in Daniel's head, and the blank stare when he saw him lying in that cold cell reminded him too much of Dan O'Neill.

Yes, it was the eyes. That's what had been bothering Jack. They would spark with determination to help the brothers, but more and more, they dulled to a flat, listless gleam, matching his often dull and tired voice reciting how he was okay. It was the eyes.

Jack could always count on the myriad of emotions flying through the eyes to know what Daniel was thinking. It was spooky how right on Jack was with that, even at guessing when Daniel wasn't going to listen to orders and run off as usual to do what he believed was right. It was something Jack could count on in the heat of battle: the predictability of Daniel's unpredictability.

He resisted the urge to laugh. Now that was a tongue twister.

Daniel looked at him out of the corner of his eye, whipping them back to the front at the empty vial. Jack watched the long fingers turning the glass container before he finally spoke up.

"Bad?" O'Neill asked softly.

Daniel knew what he was asking. He swallowed, pretending to be utterly fascinated with the vial. When he saw Jack was still waiting, he reluctantly nodded slowly.

"Wanna talk about it?" the colonel offered.

Daniel shook his head, almost too quickly.

Jack sighed. It was probably not the time to force anything out of him. Time was short as it was. "But you know you can...right?"

Pausing, Daniel thought about it, and then slowly nodded once more.

Relieved, Jack sat back in the chair, feeling like he'd gained a partial victory. The rigid posture he'd held deflated and he allowed himself a moment to lean into the chair. His eyebrow arched when he felt no pain from his back. "Damn, this stuff really works. My second dose and I feel like I can do cartwheels."

Daniel raised his gaze, concerned as memory reminded him that he wasn't the only one who'd come through this with physical souvenirs. "How is your back?"

Jack rotated his arm, showing him with a grin. "Great. Warner got pissed off because he didn't get to poke me or anything. Didn't even need stitches."

"Good." Daniel's smile was small but genuine.

Jack would have smiled back, but he felt he needed to speak after all. The smile Daniel gave was reassuring, though. He took a deep breath. "Daniel, about Jol—"

"I know," Daniel interrupted him.

Another eyebrow up. "You do?"

Looking down at the vial, Daniel nodded. "I know you meant...well...That wasn't her. I wish it was, but it wasn't. I suppose telling me when I couldn't see would have made it worse. It was...it was just a shock that's all." He dropped the neuar container and sighed heavily. "For a moment, I wanted to ask her to...to stay."

Jack sat up, gripping the armrests. "Daniel—"

"I know, Jack. I know. I can't. It isn't right. Just...let's forget about it. Forget I said anything. You're right. I should be thinking about helping these people not moping around over my problems." A self-disgusted look washed over Daniel's features.

Jack scowled. "Don't be that hard on yourself either. For crying out loud, history was that close to repeating itself for you like Dan."

"But it didn't." Waving the glass vial and pointing to himself, Daniel shook his head. "It didn't. I only had them for two days, even less if I think about it. Dan suffered through more."

"Damn it, Daniel. It wasn't only two days. It was the longest two days I've ever had to go through."

Daniel blinked.

Leaning forward, Jack said it carefully, making sure his friend heard every word. "I know exactly how my double feels now, Daniel. And I know he would agree with me...one day was one day too many. It never..._ever_...should have happened." Jack clasped Daniel on the knee. "I'm just sorry I wasn't able to stop them."

Lowering his head, Daniel didn't speak. He poked the blankets underneath him, rolling the discarded vial up and down with his finger until he whispered, "Me too." His eyes flooded with dark emotions, his brow twitching, and Jack knew he must be remembering more details about his ordeal.

Jack sighed, falling back against his chair. He thumped a fist against the armrest. "But I couldn't do anything."

"Yeah, I know." Daniel raised his head. "But you got us out."

Jack scowled. "Actually, that was Kawalsky and Jolinar."

"I vaguely recall someone there when they pulled those things out of me," Daniel shyly said.

The colonel didn't smile. "Trust me. That was the first and only time I am ever playing doctor."

Shivering, Daniel didn't argue with him. He stared at the empty vial when something occurred to him. "Jack, you said Dan didn't need these any more. Why?"

The colonel pursed his lips as his brow knitted together. Daniel closed his eyes, reading the look on Jack's face.

"Oh."

"Teal'c told me," Jack said in a quiet voice.

"How is his brother taking it?"

"He doesn't know."

"What?" Daniel's head shot up. "He—What? Why not?"

Jack folded his arms, the frown growing. "Don't know. From what Teal'c was saying and trust me, the big guy wasn't happy playing the SGC gossip sheet, Dan said something to John about—"

"Blaming him for what had happened to him. About hating him. Oh God," Daniel shook his head.

"Care to enlighten me here, Daniel?" Jack asked wryly.

"John was here before, and he said something about Dan blaming him. I thought he was mistaken, but he said Dan was the one to say it to him." Daniel sighed, falling back against the bed. "I think I know why now."

"You do? That's good because I don't." Jack got up and began to pace. "They're brothers, for God's sake! Why the hell isn't he telling him?"

"Because it's always hardest to tell the person closest to you."

Jack stopped, studying Daniel. "Is that how it goes, huh?"

A sad smile twisted on Daniel's lips. "I'm guessing so. Siblings never tell each other everything while their best friends know all. Not that I would know. Never had a sibling...well...not one who didn't mind having me as a foster brother."

Jack didn't comment. "You think he's doing this for my twin's own good?"

"It's what I would do, I suppose, if I had a family."

_But you do_, Jack wanted to say but instead, he shook his head. "I think it's backfiring. He's going to go over the edge. I know. He has that...that look." A chill went down Jack's arms. It was the same look he'd had as he'd cradled his gun, sitting in Charlie's room. Before the uniforms came and told him he was reactivated. "I think we should tell him."

"No."

Jack stared at Daniel. "Excuse me?"

Staring at the ceiling, Daniel chewed his lower lip. "I don't think we should tell him. I think Dan should."

"Huh," was Jack's only comment. "And who's going to convince him of that?"

Daniel gazed steadily at Jack. "Me."


	37. Chapter 36

**CHAPTER THIRTY SIX**

Entering their cafeteria, Jolinar scanned the small room with mild interest, noting the blue cloth on all the tables, each vase with a carnation inside. Pausing by a table, she tentatively stroked the petals of the flower.

In return, Sam studied Jolinar, Sha're's mirror image, as she observed soldiers going by. Her eyes lit as she recognized a few before they dulled with sadness as she remembered how they'd fared in her reality. She went back to studying the flower with utmost fascination.

"I have never seen this blossom before," Jolinar said, her index finger tracing the small petals before dropping her hand, fearing she would damage it.

"It's a carnation," Sam told her. The Tok'ra nodded.

"Ah." Touching the petals again, Jolinar smiled. "Flowers from Tau'ri are quite rare. You must be in the royal court to view them. I have never seen one of these."

They continued on to the counter. Sam picked up two trays and handed one to Jolinar, explaining she could use it to carry her selections. "You can pick out whatever you want to eat."

One of the workers in the canteen stood behind the neat rows of food; her tag read Lucy, and she smoothed her white uniform as she smiled. She gave Jolinar a curious glance.

"Hello, Major Carter. Miss—"

Jolinar smiled. "Jolinar would be sufficient."

Lucy gave a polite nod, patting her hair bun back into place with one hand. "Um hm...Can I tell you about our specials today, ladies? I can recommend the meatloaf surprise or the macaroni and cheese."

Jolinar's eyebrow went higher, her gaze turning to Sam.

"Uh, I'm just having coffee, thanks."

"Do you have chocolate?"

Sam blinked as Jolinar directed her question to the server. Lucy looked surprised, taking a closer look at her and noting the blue flightsuit, indicating she was a guest.

"Ah...yes, we do." She walked further down the counter towards the desserts. "We have chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream, chocolate mousse pie, pudding, milk, chocolate chip cookies..." Lucy trailed off at the sight of Jolinar's interested face, realizing the Tok'ra wasn't stopping her. "Uh...Miss Jolinar? What would you like?"

Jolinar tilted her head, thinking. She then nodded. "That would be fine."

Lucy chewed her lower lip, glancing back to Sam, confused. "Uh...excuse me? Which one?"

Jolinar blinked innocently. "The ones you have mentioned."

"Y-you mean all of them?" Lucy stammered.

Puzzled, Jolinar tilted her head to the side as she nodded. "Did you not say they were chocolate?"

Lucy appeared flustered. "Uh...yeah...I uh...guess I did. Go ahead and take what you want from here. I'll go get the ice cream." The woman turned around, giving Jolinar another weird look over her shoulder before departing.

Sam didn't know what to make of it. She stared at the Tok'ra, who was standing there looking oddly like a tourist as her gaze wandered around the room, tracking the soldiers' activities.

"Hungry?" Carter joked weakly as she helped load up Jolinar's tray with a sampling of all the chocolate desserts.

Smiling, Jolinar shook her head as she followed Sam to a table and sat down. "It is not for me." She paused, running a palm across the tablecloth. "They are for Dan-yel."

"W-what?" Sam forced herself to clamp her mouth shut. "Excuse me?"

The Tok'ra brushed her hand down her clothes like they were made of fine silk, and she revealed white even teeth as she smiled quickly. It faded just as fast. She looked down at the table, her hair falling forward.

"He once told me the food he missed the most was chocolate." Jolinar patted her clothes again. "He should have it at least one last time."

"Aren't you upset?" Sam blurted.

Jolinar blinked, raising her eyes. "About his impending death?" Pausing, the Tok'ra thought about it. She shook her head. "Why should I be? His pain will end."

"True, I guess." Fiddling with the salt shaker, Sam silently agreed, remembering the lines of agony etched on Dan O'Neill's face. Thinking of something else, she paused.

"But won't you...miss him?"

Jolinar looked startled at the question, rendered speechless for a moment. She opened her mouth to speak, finding no words. She lowered her head again, her voice even lower.

"Yes. Yes I will."

Sam studied her fingers, wondering how to start. She didn't even know why she was here herself!

"You did not ask me here for this question," Jolinar surmised.

Jolinar's gaze swept over her, studying her. It gave Sam the overwhelming feeling of being pinned under a microscope. The major squirmed in her seat, unsure why she was uncomfortable with the scrutiny. It wasn't like she hadn't been in the eye of attention before.

"You were once a host." The Tok'ra sat straighter. "I sensed it before, but you made no mention so I did not pursue it."

Sam only nodded again.

Regret colored Jolinar's eyes to a gray. "I am sorry. Was it Goa'uld?"

"No...actually...it was...it was Tok'ra."

Jolinar's eyes widened. "I see." She fell silent for a moment. "The Tok'ra died?"

"Yes. An assassin called an Ashrak came and...tried to destroy us both, but-"

"The Tok'ra gave up its own life to preserve yours," Jolinar finished.

Sam nodded sadly. "Yes. You don't sound surprised."

"You did not have a choice to become its host."

Surprised, Sam stammered out, "How can you tell?"

Jolinar shook her head, eyes glowing once in memory. "Often, when a Tok'ra dies, the host opts to go along with it. Separation is too painful for the host, much too empty for the person to continue on. But you..." She tilted her head, studying her. "I sense its remaining soul, but yet you live. It must not have been for too long. And the Tok'ra choosing to give you life meant it regretted forcing you to be its host in the first place."

Sam gawked at Jolinar before she finally remembered to get her mouth working again. "That's...that's very insightful of you."

"I have lost many hosts, many good comrades who chose to accompany me in battle. There was once a time, I thought I was dying as well, back on a planet called Contel."

An odd flutter danced in Sam's stomach. "I've seen the mines in Nasyia."

Jolinar looked startled but didn't press. She continued on, reaching out to the flower once more as if for strength. "I had hidden in a man's body but felt my energy would soon dissipate. It was a sudden jump, and I offered to leave, let the host survive. He...he chose not to and gave his energy to me." Her eyes dulled, lashes hooding them as she recalled. "He lingered between life and death, keeping me alive until my comrades arrived with reinforcements and gave me another host. That was before I was assigned to Abydos and met..." She gestured to her own body. "Her."

"Does she ever emerge?" Sam asked softly, mentally noting Jolinar's face was thinner. Or should she be saying Sha're's face?

"No." Shaking her head, Jolinar's lips curved downward. "I found her dying, hiding in the grave pits with her husband's and children's bodies, waiting for her turn to join them. I was pursued by the guards. My host...the host at the time, thought it best if I hid in her and my first host body continued on, leading them away."

"And you left your host? Just like that?" Sam blurted out.

"At the time, I had too crucial information to die. Otherwise, I would have never, _ever _abandoned her."

Sam was amazed to see tears glistening in Jolinar's eyes and was speechless. Jolinar stared back at her, a sad smile on her lips.

As if remembering, Jolinar wiped a stray tear with her hand and cleared her voice, sitting straighter. "Who was your Tok'ra?"

Sam stiffened. She lowered her eyes and swallowed. "Uh, actually, it was—"

"Here you go, ladies." Lucy set down a bowl of ice cream on the large full tray in between the two women. Sam jumped in her seat. Jolinar surveyed the dish with an arched eyebrow and glanced up at the worker.

Lucy was eyeing the Tok'ra. "Uh...is that enough?"

Jolinar gazed at the tray again, her eyebrow higher. "Yes. I believe this is quite sufficient, thank you."

"Uh huh." Lucy gave Sam a funny look and left.

Taking the interruption as an opportunity, Sam ducked her head, taking her coffee mug into her hands. She added sugar to the liquid, stirring quickly, letting the sounds of metal clinking against the ceramic fill the awkward silence.

"It was I, was it not?"

Sam dropped her spoon. "How—"

Jolinar shrugged, smiling. "I...guessed?"

Guilty, Sam nodded, moistening her lips with a quick swipe of her tongue. "It was. I-I don't know why I felt the urge to talk to you about this. This has nothing to do with you, but I just had this compelling urge to tell you something."

Jolinar sat there, her hands folded on the table, waiting expectantly.

"I..." Sam didn't know why she was at a loss for words. It was a new feeling for her. She actually didn't know what to say. "I know it wasn't you...I mean, not you as in _you _but..." She took a deep breath. "Thank you." For giving up your life to let me live.

Bowing her head once, Jolinar's eyes held a smile she didn't reveal with her lips. She reached out and touched Carter's hand, patting it just once.

"You are welcome. I am grateful my death, in _any _reality, was not in vain."

Sam didn't know how to respond, so she only returned the gesture, squeezing the hand back, feeling the heavy sensation in her chest lighten as she smiled in return.

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The shadows in the locker room almost concealed him.

Jack cleared his throat, but John didn't look up. The captain merely grunted and waved to the available space on the bench where he sat. Pursing his lips, Jack studied his twin for a moment before sitting down next to him.

_Now what?_ Jack thought, wondering how Daniel was faring.

"You know."

Jack blinked. He turned to John. The captain narrowed his eyes, glaring at him.

"You know about Dan," John hissed between clenched teeth.

_Well, my job is half done_, Jack thought. He found himself bothered by the flat, dull gleam in similar brown eyes.

John snorted in disgust and got up, slamming a fist on a poor locker. "Everyone knew except me! What makes you think you can keep something like this from me?"

"Now hold on!" Jack rose to his feet as well. "I didn't know. And not everyone is keeping secrets from you! I only found out by accident. No one really knows."

"Except the doctor," John seethed.

Jack stopped. "Well...I guess she would since she was treating him—"

"Why didn't she tell me?" Spinning around, John looked like he wanted to strike Jack but lowered his fists in time. "He's my brother, for God's sake! I had a right to know!"

Jack stood there, waiting. Just as he expected, John came to his own conclusion. The captain's shoulders slumped.

"Unless...he didn't want me to know. God, Mutt..." John sank to the bench again and dropped his head in his hands.

In the back of his mind, Jack wondered if that was how he had looked when Nem tricked them all into thinking Daniel had perished in a furious fire. Jack could have sworn he tasted brimstone as he was staggering through the Stargate, legs without strength as he dropped to the ground, cut off at the knees by the realization Daniel was gone under his watch.

"Why? Why wouldn't he tell me?" Muffled, John's voice seeped out between his fingers. "Why did he..." The captain visibly swallowed. "He was right. This was all my fault...I _never_ should have left them there."

"Daniel was right."

John raised his head.

"Dan doesn't blame you. I think—no. I know he was saying all those things to you to keep you away."

Stunned, John dropped his hands, gaping at Jack.

Gesturing at the slouched posture, Jack made his point. "Look at you! You're hammering yourself over what's happening to him!"

"Of course! I care what happens to him! I'm not going to ignore—"

"That's not what I meant!"

John glowered at him.

Running a hand through his hair, Jack scowled back. "Damn, I never thought it would be so hard to talk to myself...I mean you—I—Argh! You know what I mean!" He threw up his hands and paced angrily around the small space between the rows of lockers. He stopped mid-step and spun back to John. He jabbed a finger in the air towards the captain.

"You're destroying yourself! Blaming yourself! Letting yourself get so eaten up with guilt you don't realize it's pulling everyone else down with you!"

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," John grated.

Jack gave a short laugh. "Nice try, buddy, but we've both been in the same boat before, remember? Nice sunny day? You and Sara sitting out on the porch?"

John narrowed his eyes. "Shut up."

"Maybe you just got home, saw her gardening. Thought she was the best thing you ever saw?"

"I said shut up."

"Thought you would head up to see Charlie in a bit, went to tell Sara just how beautiful she looked. Am I right?" Jack found himself babbling, mouth going non-stop, the little voice in the back of his mind, recoiling at words he'd never thought he'd speak. _What the hell are you doing_, the voice screamed. "You snuggled up to her and thought how the hell did you get so god damn lucky when you heard the gun—"

"I said SHUT UP!" John rose up, roaring.

Jack felt an arm under his jaw before he could even register the red face. His last syllable got choked off as he was slammed into the lockers behind him. Instinct took over, whipped up his hands, and Jack grabbed the arm before it could crush his windpipe. With a snap, he pushed the offending arm away, only to get a punch in his stomach. As he doubled over, he knew his twin would be going in for the kill, a knee to the gut. So his hands shot down, blocked the predictable blow, and then he head rammed John in the chin. The captain staggered back from the blow, falling to the floor.

What Jack didn't expect was for the captain to grab him by the lapels and pull him with him.

The two men slammed down to the floor, both grunting as they sought purchase, hands pressing against the other's face, tilting heads back. But both were trained. Both knew how to hurt a fellow human being so the struggle quickly came to a stalemate with Jack over John, an arm against John's own windpipe, John's hands over his throat.

"Are we finished? Are you going to sit down and listen to what you know is true? Are you going to stop lying to yourself? Are you?" Jack wheezed around the tight grip over his neck. Veins bulged under John's hold as he glared down at the captain. "Or are we going to duke this out until one of us croaks?"

John growled under his breath, dropping his hands. Jack relaxed, releasing. Then, John surged forward with a fist.

Jack had seen it coming too late. He should have anticipated it. It was something _he_ would have done. Jerking his head back, Jack wasn't able to avoid it completely and caught a glancing blow on his chin. Stunned, he fell back on his rear, vaguely realizing he could taste blood.

The captain stood over his sprawled form. "That," John panted, "was for screwing up and letting them do that to Daniel."

Jack straightened his legs, kicking them right at John's knees, sending his double to the floor. He lunged forward and pinned John to the ground, sitting on John's legs, hands pressed down on John's shoulders.

"And that," Jack hissed back at his own angry face, "was for being the real blind jackass of the family." He narrowed his eyes, heaving, pressing down harder when John tried to throw him off. "Now are we finished?"

John scowled at him.

"Are we done or are we going to waste more time arguing with ourselves while there are people who need us?" Jack bellowed at his twin's beet red face.

John stilled.

"Are we?" the colonel repeated.

John forced it out with a whoosh. "We are."

Dark brown eyes burned to black, drilled into Jack's head. Jack ignored the scalding glare as he released and sat back, breathless. Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, Jack sat there, heaving, watching John warily as the captain sat up as well, mimicking the same motion.

"You're wrong," John panted. "It's not the same. It's not."

Jack snorted.

Glowering at Jack, John got up, not even offering a hand to his counterpart. Jack got up on his own and staggered back to the lockers, back against metal as he rubbed his sore abdomen with a grimace. He turned his head to the side and spat the blood in his mouth.

"You make it sound like I'm in denial," John bit out. "I know what's going on. I do know. Hell, it follows me everywhere I go."

"And that's the problem!"

John stopped.

"You keep thinking so much about how you got him there and how you'll get him out that you're not considering all the other things that could happen. You lock yourself up in a god damn room full of memories, wishing things were different, wishing the past never happened, and ignore the fact someone is outside waiting, hoping you won't pull the fucking trigger!" Jack struck his thigh with a red, angry fist before pointing a finger at John. "You can't tell me that's not what's going to happen when he dies!"

John flinched at the words. "He's not going to die. We'll get the—"

"And what if you don't?" challenged Jack.

"They got them in him; they can get them out."

"But what if they can't?"

John bunched his own fists at Jack. "Why are you being so pessimistic?"

"And why are you being so blind?" Jack shot back.

John fell silent, resentment sculpting his face to stone, jaw clenched tight.

"Your brother is blind, but he can see! He knows what you'll do to yourself when he goes! You're going to pull the god damn trigger!" Jack stood there, legs apart, staring at John. Jack's shoulders lost their hard edge, and he gazed at John steadily. He raised a hand, his index finger and shook it at him. "Don't. Just don't, okay? It won't help him. You're just making it harder for him."

John gazed back at him, eyes dulling to gray, his breathing slowing to a calmer pace. His mouth a grim line, his eyes narrowed with lines of age bordering them, John didn't speak.

"Just don't," Jack continued softly, lowering his hand. He came up to the man, but didn't touch him. He could see the quivering outlining the captain's body. "You're scaring him. Can't you see that? Why do you think he pushed you away? You think he wants to be alone? As much as either of them insisting they are fine, there's a little boy inside screaming for someone to help. You know. And even though it took me a while, even I know it now." Jack hesitantly placed a hand on John's shoulder, the touch odd yet familiar. "Don't do this to him. Don't make him go, knowing you're going to follow. Leave him some hope. That's our job, man. We gotta give them some hope, no matter what. They expect it. They rely on it. Your brother. And Daniel. They both rely on us to keep strong, to know when to leave them, and do what we're supposed to."

"And what is that?" John said hoarsely.

Jack lowered his head to meet John's hooded eyes. "To get the Goa'uld who did this to him. They're the ones to be blamed. Not yourself. Them. Ra."

"Ra," John repeated with a hiss.

Jack nodded.

"I can't...I can't accept that..." John whispered, raising his head. "Of Dan...of him dying."

"Okay, fair enough. You can't accept it. I probably wouldn't either, but don't let it chain you down in some room." Jack pulled away. "I did that with my kid and look at me now. I destroyed my marriage, let myself go on a mission through the Stargate with the word suicidal stamped on my forehead. I didn't see Sara suffering. I wasn't strong for her. I almost let myself go along with my kid."

Sinking down on a bench across from John, Jack sighed. "I know where you're heading. I know you're thinking you're doing everything you can by giving Dan the hope of a cure. But don't you see? All you're doing is making Dan think you're going to go through that Stargate with no expectation of returning except in a body bag. You've gotta be strong. You've gotta give him hope but not the kind you think he needs."

"I can't," John choked, dropping to the parallel bench. "You want me to embrace his death and just pretend I'm not bothered by it? I can't."

"I didn't say anything like that. Just...show him you'll be okay no matter what. Give him that."

John dropped his head, shoulders slumping, his arms folded on his knees, his hands dangling. He raised his head as if it were heavy, his haunted eyes gazing back at Jack with such darkness Jack flinched.

"I-I don't know if I can."

Speechless, Jack could only watch John get up and walk out of the locker room. The moment the door shut, the soft click of the lock loud in the room, Jack sagged back against the lockers.

"Damn, Sara," Jack croaked out loud. "Is this what you saw back then?" He sat there, his head against the lockers, hoping Daniel had fared better than he had.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

_"But why?" Dan asked in a small voice, sitting on the bed. He kicked the covers because they were too hot, but John only pulled them up again. The teen sighed, patting his covered feet._

_"I just don't want to go to college, Mutt." John reached over and felt Dan's forehead. "Man, you still feel warm. I wonder if maybe I was supposed to give you two aspirin, not one?" He looked over his shoulder. "Mom's not going to be back for another hour. Hold on, and let me get you another towel."_

_"But—" Dan sat back, frustrated as the teenager got off the bed and went to the bathroom. Dan kicked the covers away. He spied the pamphlets on the bed, the ones John was carrying before he passed by his room and heard Dan cough. The title Air Force was stamped in bold white letters, bright against his yellow quilt. _

_Dan frowned._

_Keeping an eye on the door, he snagged the pamphlets and stuck them under his pillow. He heard footsteps approaching, and he hastily got back on the bed, deliberately sitting on the pillow to hide his tracks._

_"Okay," John announced. "This should help." He gingerly placed the damp cloth over Dan's forehead. The cool water trickled down the warm cheek. He sat back, studying Dan, then looked down._

_"Hey, where's my stuff?"_

_Dan looked up at the ceiling, patting the towel on his forehead, ignoring John._

_"Danny." John got up and before Dan could stop him, stuck his hand under the pillow and yanked the papers out. "Nice try, but remember? You always hide your stuff there even that note from your teacher about Eddie Wright hitting you." He sat down, waving the pamphlets. "Even without these, I'll still be able to get more and join up." He gave him a reproachful look, before softening to a sad smile. "You can't stop me, Dan."_

_"Why?" Dan pressed, lower lip sticking out._

_John sighed. "Look, I just can't see college as my thing, okay? And I would have joined up two years ago if I'd been caught with Steve and the others trashing the gym. They went and enlisted so they wouldn't get the arrest on their records."_

_"But you didn't," reminded Dan._

_Smiling, John ruffled Dan's hair, careful not to jar the towel. "Not with you following me out of the house. Man, I had a fit when I turned around before going in that gym and saw you standing right there! I still don't know how you climbed down that tree by yourself!"_

_Dan reached out and tugged at John's wrist. "Don't go," he implored. "I won't follow you around and bother you again. Just don't go to the army."_

_"Air force," John corrected. "And you never bother me. Don't say that."_

_Dan's lip trembled as he tugged the hand. "If...if you go...they may send you there..."_

_John arched his eyebrow, not realizing he was imitating their father perfectly. "Where?"_

_"V-vietnam," Dan whispered. _

_John sat up higher. "What do you know about Vietnam?"_

_"My teacher talked about it," Dan whispered. _

_Scowling, John patted Dan's hand and pulled away. "Your teacher, huh? They shouldn't be teaching this stuff to you in school. You're too young."_

_"I'm in the sixth grade," Dan pointed out._

_"Yeah, but you're only nine. You're only in the sixth grade because they let you skip two years."_

_Ducking his head, Dan's lip trembled, and he didn't care that the cool towel fell off to his lap. He felt John sit closer, pulling him in. Dan's head pressed against John's chest as his older brother awkwardly patted him on the back._

_"Don't do that. Maybe they won't send me there. They'll still be training me."_

_"It's bad there. I've seen the protests outside your school. Everyone says it's bad. Even Dad said it's bad." Dan lifted his arms up and wrapped them around John. "Don't go. You could go to college like Dad said. I...I could go with you."_

_John pulled back and tapped him lightly on the head. "Silly Mutt. You can't go to college with me. You're not old enough."_

_"I'm not old enough for the sixth grade, and they let me go anyway." Dan sat up, the idea growing in his mind. "Maybe they'll let me skip some more."_

_Laughing out loud, John sat back against the bedpost. "No offense, Danny, but you're not that smart!"_

_Stung, Dan sniffed, dropping his head._

_"Aw, I didn't mean it that way, but there's no way they'll have you go to college that young. Besides, I don't want to go to college. At least not now. Not yet." John leaned over and peered at Dan's face. "I just can't see myself becoming a doctor or something fancy with three letters attached to my name. Not like you. You already know you want to be an archeologist. I want to know what I can be."_

_Dan peered sadly at him. "You're really going to go?"_

_John nodded. "But I'll be back. I can't stay here forever. Heck, when you grow up to be an archeologist, you'll be going all over the place, too! I'm just a little earlier than you."_

_"But I'll be alone," Dan whispered, eyes downcast._

_"You got Mom and Dad."_

_"What if I want to talk to you?"_

_"Then call me."_

_"What about Egypt?"_

_"We're still doing that. When you graduate from college like we planned. No way am I going to miss your graduation!"_

_Dan sniffed, not completely convinced. "What if Eddie hits me again?"_

_John narrowed his eyes. "Has he?"_

_"No," Dan whispered, raising his eyes defiantly, his lower lip sticking out. "But he could."_

_John grinned. "Then I'll come back and show off my big fighter jet and scare him off so fast he'll be peeing in his pants!"_

_Dan giggled._

_His brother waved his hand like a jet flying past his nose, making loud whooshing noises. "We'll get on my plane and zoom! Whiz right by him when he's in the bathroom. He'll be so scared, he'll come running out of there, forgetting to put up his pants!"_

_Laughing, Dan clamped his mouth with his hand. He was supposed to be sad in order to make John stay. He couldn't laugh._

_"Hey." John tapped him on the shoulder._

_Dan looked up._

_"Nothing changes. You know that, right?" John gazed seriously at him. "I'm still your brother. You're not alone. You need me, and I'll be there. No matter how far away. Don't be scared."_

_"And you'll be okay?" Dan asked hopefully._

_"No matter how far away you go or I go, we'll both be okay. I promise."_

Dan heard humming.

He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but the humming he heard as the last of the dream faded away to the dreaded darkness assured him he was somewhere safe. And the soft gentle stroking on his head told him he was with a friend. He opened his eyes, saw a flash of blonde hair before it was snatched away again. Lately, his vision was quicker to leave every time he woke.

"W-what's that song?" Dan asked in a hoarse voice.

The humming stopped.

"How long was I out?"

"Not long." Sammy brushed back his hair, using the opportunity to check his temperature. "Do you need more morphine?"

"N-no..." Dan pulled away from her hold. He could feel the bed underneath him, layers of blankets over his legs. He was dismayed to realize he couldn't even kick them away.

Sammy understood though and peeled a few back, lightening the load. Dan gratefully kicked the rest away and sat back against the wall.

"Where's Jolinar?" he asked faintly when he realized he couldn't hear her voice.

"She went out to talk to me. My double from this reality, that is."

Dan nodded, feeling the gold bracelet on his own wrist. He could hear the scorn dripping off her words. "Sammy, you've really got to be more cordial to Jolinar."

"I don't have to do squat."

He sighed. "Sammy—"

"Look, don't ask me to be diplomatic right now. Be glad I didn't put a bullet between her eyes when your brother first brought her to our base."

"She's not Goa'uld, Sammy."

"Close enough."

"If it weren't for her, I would have been long dead or worse."

"If it weren't for her, you might have gotten out sooner."

"I told you. She was a lower class citizen in his eyes. There was no way she could have left the ship. I was lucky enough she even found the tunnel that led to my cell."

Sammy grunted, signaling the end of the discussion. "You should drink some water. Hold on; I'll get it for you." She got up, the bed tipping slightly before rebounding as she rose.

Dan shook his head. He couldn't understand why Sammy had to be so stubborn. The last time he talked to her about it, she...

Dan stopped.

When did he talk to her last?

It was...

He couldn't remember.

_Stay calm. It's happened before. You've got to concentrate and focus on what you need. It'll come. _

Dan took a deep breath. Voices, past conversations came and went, teasing him as he tried to catch them. He sat back against the wall, pressing harder against the flat surface to ground himself.

"Here," Sammy said, bringing the glass close to him. The glass was too full, and water splashed over the edge, cold liquid touching his face.

_He gasped as they yanked on his hair, jerking him back out of the pool of icy water. Drops trickled down his face, his shoulders. He shouted, in their language and in his, demanding they let him go._

_Voices laughed, sneering in the darkness before hands came from nowhere to grab him by the shoulders and the back of his thighs. His head was still sore, and the fresh wounds from the insertion of the re'klya only a month ago were pounding in unison with his hammering heart. Dan twisted, trying to break free._

_"I tire of his defiance," Ra's voice floated around him in ancient Egyptian, sounding bored. "Teach him humility. Show me he will fear me."_

_"No!" Dan shouted. "I'll never fear you! You bastard! We'll take you down! You don't belong here!" He felt large hands roaming up his back, deep throated laughter hissing in his ears. He was slammed down hard on his stomach, and he felt whips taken out. He twisted, struggled, but the large hands pinned him down by pressing down on his shoulders and thighs. He couldn't even kick. _

_"Teach him who is his god."_

_Dan heard cloth rip before cold air scratched his exposed back. He yelled, outraged, and didn't hear armor discarded or the snap of the whips._

_The first stabbing pain came as a surprise. The next made him scream so loud, he thought he would die from the forceful outcry that emptied his lungs in one sound. Over and over, the heat of pain running in him like a hot poker, their laughter scalding. Their hands pawing his bare skin felt so filthy as the whips hissed in the air—they all assaulted his ears. And as he faded away, he could still feel the cool droplets of water from his damp hair, dripping down his face like tears._

"Dan! Dan!"

Screaming, twisting, Dan fought, feeling the hands freed from his legs. He clutched at his shirt, not giving them a chance at his back again, kicking out to his assailants

"Dan! Listen to me! It's not real! Get away from the broken glass! Come on, let me get you away from the broken glass."

Glass.

Dan found a piece by his bare feet, a good sizable one, curved, the size of his palm. He snatched it and waved it at them.

"Oh God," a female voice breathed.

"G-get away...get away..." Dan stuttered as he waved the makeshift weapon at them. "D-don't come any closer. D-don't t-touch me..."

"Dan. Listen to me. It's not real."

He brandished the weapon frantically. He knew they were trying to trick him. Like when he thought he was alone in the cell, stumbling until he felt shameful hands mauling him, taunting him as he tried to figure out where the enemy was, and where was it safe to hide.

A hand lashed out and grabbed his wrist.

"Nooo!" he howled before he heard the door opening.

"What happened?" another voice demanded. It sounded as familiar as an echo.

"He's having some sort of flashback." Hands bound his wrists between stronger ones. Dan screamed.

"Should I get Doctor—"

"No. Close that door. Give him a moment. He'll be okay." Arms circled Dan, squeezing, pressing him close to another body. Dan howled, kicking out, humiliating laughter echoing in his head.

"Sh...Dan...time to come back now. Come on, baby...Sh...It's okay. Bad dream. Shouldn't have surprised you like that. Come on."

Dan felt himself being rocked back and forth. He whimpered, struggling.

"It's all right. No one but friends here, baby. Come on. Come on back to us."

Soft humming again, wordless, endless. It went around him, wrapped him with the promise of safety. The arms around him were too thin, too slender to be John's, yet he felt safe, sheltered, the swaying stilling his shivering.

Sammy ignored Daniel, who was standing awkwardly on the sidelines as she coaxed coherent consciousness back into Dan. She cooed, remembering how Jonas sometimes, although rarely, would calm with this even when he couldn't hear.

Left and right. Left and right, she rocked him as she would a child. Like the dying little girl with long golden hair she found in Hanka when they first went there to determine if the planet was a feasible one for their refugees. The young child didn't know who Sammy was, too lost in her own pain as she lay dying beside the corpses of her parents, slaughtered by the Goa'uld. Sammy rocked her, telling her it was okay to close her eyes, the two of them hidden behind the bushes away from her men, her own vulnerability safe from prying eyes. The little girl smiled and with a little shudder, died in her arms without a trace of pain in her white face.

"Come back," she chanted. "Nothing's here to hurt you. Nothing."

After a little while, she felt Dan stir, shifting in her hold. He winced and with a soft moan, closed his unseeing eyes. He took a deep shuddering breath.

"S-sammy?"

"Here."

Dan ran his tongue over his lower lip, breathing heavily. Finally, he rasped out, "H-how bad was it?"

Sammy gave Daniel a glance. "Couldn't reach you for a while there."

Dan shuddered. "G-god...it's...it's 'arder to come back each time. Like...like drowning."

She closed her eyes. "I know."

"I can't keep doing this. It's soon, Sammy. I might not be able to come back next time. Then...then...where will that leave John? God..." Dan swallowed back a sob, head bowed. He sat there breathing harshly, rasping in and out. Finally, his tongue swiping his lower lip, he whispered, "Sammy...promise me something..."

"What?" she whispered as she stroked his brow.

Coughing, he struggled to sit up with her help. The pillows and blankets bundled around him tightly. Snaking a hand out, he grabbed her arm and pulled her closer. She patiently let him, her face inches from his.

"Please...if...if this doesn't work...If we can't beat Ra..." he choked, shaking his head as he hunched over.

His other hand clutched her shirt desperately. "I want you to...to..." Dan felt his head guided against Sammy's shoulder. Swallowing, he took a deep breath and whispered the last of his words.

"I want you to take me someplace where John can't find me."

The woman recoiled in shock. "I...what are you saying?"

"I don't want John to be the one to do it...like...like you did with J—" Dan tried to sit up higher. "I can't..."

Sammy gave Daniel a look. The archeologist was white faced, although she recalled he was already a bit pale when he came in. He swallowed, nodding towards the door and turned to leave.

Still not realizing he had a bigger audience than he'd first thought, Dan went on. "Somewhere...where John can't find me." He coughed and curled up against her shoulder. "No matter what or how many times he asks, d-don't tell him. I don't want him to find me." His voice grew firmer. "I don't want him to see me like that in the end..."

"Dan, he's going to ask. He won't just give up."

"I know. I'm sorry. I 'houldn't be asking you. It's a lot to ask." Dan took a deep breath. "But it's for the best. You told me...you told me once, how it felt. How could I possibly..." He swallowed. "I know I shouldn't even...but could you...when the time comes?"

Sammy closed her eyes briefly. Dimly, she could feel the phantom ache of the scar on her cheek. "Alright. I promise you. I promised once before. I won't back down from it."

"You can't do that."

Jerking her head up, she realized Daniel was still standing there, staring at them. The heat of anger flushed her face, and she sat up.

"Who's there?" stuttered Dan, shuffling further back.

Daniel stepped forward, shaking his head at Sammy's angry gesture to leave. "It's me. I'm sorry. I came to talk. Didn't mean to intrude, but I heard what you said, and I have to stop you."

Laughing in a strained voice, Dan sat there, his knees drawn up, staring in Daniel's general direction. "Stop me? From what? Helping my brother?"

"No, from making a mistake."

Sammy narrowed her eyes. "I don't think you realize how it will be for him, Doctor Jackson."

"I heard. I heard. But I don't think you realize how it will be for Captain O'Neill." Daniel came closer and sat on the edge of the bed. He gave Sammy a sad smile. "I think you should tell him."

"Tell him?" Dan parroted harshly. "Just like that. Out of the blue. I tell him I'm dying. I'm leaving. Oh, by the way, can you blow my brains out before I go loony tunes?" He bunched his fists. "Have you any idea what it would be like for him to see me..." He took a shuddering breath. "Do you know what it'll do to him to see me go like that?"

Daniel abruptly turned towards Hansen. "Commander Hansen, can we talk alone, please?"

Startled, Sammy studied him.

He waved his hands at her, eyes pleading, voice calm and quiet. "Please. I know what I'm doing. We need to talk."

"Like hell we do! I have nothing to say to you!"

Daniel's earnest face, blue eyes bright with a shadow pain Sammy couldn't describe convinced her. She nodded. Leaning forward, she touched Dan's knee. "I'll be right outside."

"Sammy—"

"Just hear him out. Okay?"

Dan scowled but said nothing as she walked out the door.

Daniel waited until the door clicked shut, her concerned face blocked from seeing the room before he spoke again.

"You're making a mistake."

Dan refused to speak.

"I know...I know it's coming to an end for you soon," Daniel hedged, chewing his lower lip, his eyes hooded with memory. "And I know you're thinking you're protecting him by hiding, but you're not. He's your family. The only family you have left. And you're the only family he has right now. I...If it were me, I would want him to know."

"If it were you?" The words were forced out of tightly clamped lips. Dan raised his head, the corner of his mouth twitching with anger.

"If it were you?" He sat up, shaking. "It isn't. Don't you get it? It isn't you! You're not the one with family to worry about! You're not the one with one brother raking himself over the coals while the rest of your family is god knows where! That isn't your brother out there! You're not me! You're sitting here in front of me, all fine and dandy, getting to call this world your home, crowing about how we shouldn't keep secrets from each other. You have no idea what a family is! No idea of the stuff family need to do for one another! No idea at all!"

Daniel flinched as if he'd been slapped. But Dan didn't notice, didn't hear. His words, once started, were unable to stop, nothing damming them up. The wall he'd built around them had shattered before his twin.

"Do you think I came to this decision easily? Do you think I snapped my fingers and said I think I'll leave John today? No! I didn't! I held on as hard as I could! I fought to regain every inch of what the damn _re'klya _took from me! They take chunks out of me, take away my power to defend, my ability to help, and now, my own sanity! Chunks! They take chunks, and I try so hard, so god damn hard to get it back and get only crumbs. _Crumbs_!" Dan shouted the last word at Daniel with an angry wave of a hand.

"How could you even possibly think I want John to stick around and watch me become some pathetic, shivering lump before he finally has to put the freaking gun to my head and say goodbye? I wouldn't even know he was there! I wouldn't be able to tell him it was okay! That I understand! How the hell can you possibly think any good would come of him staying beside me?" He fell back gasping, his face flushed, his ashen pallor temporarily replaced with the hue of anger.

"If it were you?" Dan laughed bitterly. "You would come to the same decision...if it were you."

Daniel watched his counterpart shudder, hands wiping at his face to rub off the anger, the pent up frustration. He swallowed, his head still spinning from the words and the simple fact that he wasn't really steady on his feet yet. Daniel was careful to keep his voice level. "You're afraid."

Stilling, Dan didn't respond.

Like a light bulb, lit in a dark room, Daniel noted the shaking hands on his twin, the slight rocking the other scholar was making now and understood. He remembered huddling like that once, in a painfully bright room, not knowing if his friends' voices were real or a cruel hallucination. He remembered rocking himself, hoping the activity would occupy his mind, fill his being and ward off the screaming and the footsteps of approaching people who always knew how to hurt him.

The fear of losing his mind, the fear that he already had, had paralyzed him then to a point he couldn't stop himself from crying hysterically as he tried to apologize for failing his teammates. The memory, coupled with his eyes still blurring, made him forget to choose his words so he blurted, "You're scared of dying."

"Oh," Dan snorted. "And you're not?" He didn't wait for Daniel to answer. "And you're one to talk about scared. Who's not talking about a certain bitch from long ago, huh?"

Daniel reeled back. "This has nothing to do—"

"Yes, it does! You want to talk about scared? Let's talk about you! What did she do? Huh? Hit you? Smack you around a bit? Make you feel like you were a worthless piece of shit?" Dan growled. "Maybe she liked to lock you in the closet like she did me when I was too noisy at bedtime. Why the silent tongue now? You seemed to know what to say before. Why aren't you saying anything now?"

Daniel countered feebly. "I'm not here to talk about me—"

"But I want to, Mister Know-it-all!" Dan's lips peeled back, revealing teeth as he hissed. "You're sitting there preaching to me, accusing me of being scared. Goddamn hypocrite! You can't tell me you're not afraid of dying!" He fell back against his bed, breathless.

The room dropped into a heavy silence, a steady beat of twin breathing filling the space every so often.

Massaging his shoulder and feeling tired, Daniel wished his head wasn't so foggy. Maybe then his words would be more effective. Mentally, Daniel sighed, eyeing his silent, brooding double.

"I am," Daniel said suddenly. Blearily, Dan lifted his head. "I'm not saying I'm invincible or that I have a death wish. No one is. But I know I am scared of dying, and I accept it. I can't avoid it. Nothing I can do can change that. Yet, if I let that control me, I can't do anything at all. I might even get someone killed along the way."

Daniel sat closer, his voice louder, stronger as he tried to reach Dan.

"I know you think you're doing this for John. But you're not. You don't want him to see because with him there, you're constantly reminded about how closer you are to dying and that scares you."

"You're crazy."

Daniel smiled sadly. "I've been accused of that before."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Dan insisted.

"I think I do." Daniel paused. "He deserves to know. You need to tell him. Don't run away."

"Run away?" Dan laughed bitterly. "This from a man who makes evasion an art form."

Daniel winced. "Okay, I admit, there are some things I still can't talk about—"

"No shit."

"But," Daniel stressed, ignoring the sarcastic remark. "I know if I need to, if I want to, there is someone there to listen." Daniel nodded, thinking of a few people. He could feel his shoulders straighten. "I didn't before, but I have it now. Even if I don't always take it."

Dan sat there, dropping his head down, his forehead touching his drawn up knees. Daniel fell silent, watching his twin just breathe in and out, arms around the knees, creating a small world inside his own embrace. Daniel found himself sitting there huddled as well, absently rubbing his own arms up and down. But the motion reminded him of Hathor's greedy touch, up and down his arms, his body, cooing to him like he was some sort of pet, and Daniel hastily dropped his hands to his lap.

Out of the blue, Dan whispered, "I don't want to die."

Daniel bit his lower lip, dropping his eyes, feeling a shiver go up his own spine. The image of his own face stark with fear—Dan's white expression bordering the hysteria he'd finally let emerge—soured Daniel's belly. "I know. I wish saying sorry could help. I wish I could somehow balance everything for you."

"I just..." Dan turned his head towards the wall. "I'd never been alone before. Well...I was for a short time with Lily, but when John found me..." He took a deep breath, shuddering. "I don't like the idea of being alone when I go, but I don't want to have John see me like that either. I'd rather...I'd rather he remembered me the way I was before. How could that be so wrong?"

"Because he would search for you," Daniel said quietly.

"But he won't find me."

"That's the problem."

Dan raised his head.

Daniel turned slightly until he was staring at the door, the room bathed in muted darkness, only one light on in the corner. He watched shadows form around the furniture and thought he saw a delicate female shape in one with rich dark curls. He swallowed and turned away from the allure of the image.

"You don't know what it'll be like for him. What he'll go through. You think you're doing him a favor by hiding, making sure he doesn't find you in time, but—" He lowered his head. "To wait, wondering if a person's dead or alive, wondering where that person is, what she's doing, if she's okay." He paused, hearing himself. He gulped the lump in his throat.

"Wondering where the person is and hoping, hoping you'll find that person in time, to say all the things you wanted to say. You bargain with yourself. You make promises with whoever is up there listening. Just one more time, a few seconds. Just to know she—I mean, he's okay, and I'll be content, but when you do see the person, when you do...it's not enough. It only makes it worse."

Daniel sighed, his chest heaving as he slumped. "It's torture. It's too cruel to do to anyone. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. To look everywhere, year after year, not knowing, wondering, wishing, praying, then to finally find h—" He wiped his hand across his eyes, dismayed to find them burning, his palm damp with moisture. "To find out it was t-too late, that all your searching was for nothing." He turned back to Dan and tentatively reached out, touching Dan's knee before retreating.

"It's too cruel," he whispered.

"What do I do?" Dan moaned. He dropped his head to his knees again, arms over himself. "God, what do I do then?" He sniffed. "You're telling me no matter what I do, he'll still suffer. Maybe you're wrong. Maybe it won't be that way for him. He won't be alone. Kawalsky, Ferretti, Jolinar...they'll watch over him. I know they will. You're wrong. It's not going to be that way. How could you possibly know?"

Daniel closed his eyes, resting his head on a fist. "Because I searched three years for my wife after the Goa'ulds took her from me only to find her minutes before she died."

Dan was silent again.

Daniel found he couldn't sit there any more. The room became stifling. Choking, suffocating.

The creak of the bed made Dan lift his head. He cocked it, listening to the heavy, harsh breathing, the audible swallowing.

"You really think it'll be that way for John?"

Daniel nodded, then remembered and croaked, "Yes."

Dan sighed, his shoulders shaking. "God, I...I don't know what to do any more. I'm going crazy here like some freaking head case."

More chills spilled along Daniel's spine. He swallowed, his throat dry. "Um...give him a chance to say what he wants to say. And to say goodbye."

"He doesn't want to say goodbye. He doesn't think there'll be a need."

"Then make him see. Make him understand."

Dan was barely audible. "I don't know if I can."

Daniel walked back again and hunched down to Dan's shivering form. He spoke softly, air refusing to get past the lump in his throat. "You'll have to. If you really want to help him, you'll have to."

Shaking his head, Dan murmured, "I don't know," and fell silent.

"Think about it." Daniel's shoulders slumped when Dan didn't respond. "Please," he tried again but still, Dan chose not to reply. Dejected, Daniel turned towards the door and saw it was opened a crack, a blue eye peering in at him. The crack widened, revealing Sammy standing at the door. She gave him a questioning look, but the wariness was gone. She looked concerned: this time for Daniel.

In the back of his mind, Daniel realized this was the first time he'd really seen her face without the urgency of the battle or an adrenaline rush marring his perspective. He could see she was thinner, the angles of her features harsher, the scar at the right light, a shock to behold. Even her stance, while appearing casual, was brimming with contained readiness, to leap into action at any given moment. It was like a cat, watching potential prey, still considering if it was a threat or not.

Daniel wanly smiled and was astonished to see her return it, although weakly. She didn't look like a person who'd smiled much.

"Dan," she murmured to get the other's attention. Her eyes were still glued to Daniel, though. "You okay?"

He knew. She'd heard everything.

"I'm okay," Dan called out faintly.

Daniel bobbed his head mutely. He carefully walked around her, escaping for the door when he felt her hand on his left shoulder. Turning, he met her eyes.

Sammy nodded. She understood what he'd been trying to do. She didn't say anything, but her eyes warmed a degree before she turned back to Dan so quickly he thought he'd imagined it. He watched as she went over and spoke softly to Dan. Feeling like he shouldn't be here any more and with their words to each other echoing in his head, Daniel swallowed, believing he hadn't accomplished anything more than to bring up agonizing heartache. He left.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

"No way! I don't want her near me!"

Teal'c arched an eyebrow, hearing the protest that sounded oddly like Lieutenant Simmons. Stopping at the infirmary's doors, the Jaffa listened carefully and noted that the activity inside had increased to the sounds of a scuffle.

He didn't hesitate. He pushed open the doors and grabbed the collar of the first person he saw as a threat—the one waving his fists.

The soldier yelped, a mess of brown hair whipping about as he tried to see who it was. He knew though when one of the rebels in the infirmary shot to his feet with a growl.

"Doctor Frasier, is everything well?" Teal'c inquired mildly, still holding onto the Simmons from the other reality by the scuff of the neck.

"Fine," Frasier said with a slight stutter. "He's having a little difficulty letting me examine him, that's all."

"I don't want that Goa'uld near me!" the young rebel hollered, swinging his arms angrily.

Janet flinched, well aware of the other medical staff lingering with open mouths.

Teal'c lifted Simmons higher until he met him eye to eye. The young soldier froze.

"She is not Hathor in our reality. She would not harm you."

"Teal'c, it's okay," Janet started to say, approaching them. Simmons stiffened.

"Get away from me!" Simmons wrenched free, dropping to the floor with a thump as he got out of Teal'c's grasp. Surprised, Teal'c looked down.

"That was not very beneficial to you. Doctor Frasier would not harm you. She only wishes to—"

"I'm not going near her," the young soldier spat and stormed out of the infirmary.

Teal'c turned back to Frasier as the rest of the staff hurried away, the scene over.

"Well," Janet joked weakly. "That went well, don't you think?" Janet sighed. "Thank you, Teal'c, but it doesn't help. That was the third one to stomp out of here. At least they submitted to an MRI first." She folded her stethoscope. "I'll just be in my office. Might be better that way." She started to walk away.

As she passed Teal'c, he spoke. "I once told O'Neill our reality is the only one of consequence."

She stopped.

"This still remains true. What you or I may be in their reality does not affect us here. Therefore the guilt does not fall upon us but on them." Teal'c bowed his head. "If you like, I will remain to ensure this will not happen again."

"You don't have to—"

"It is what I can do." The Jaffa waited.

Janet blinked, staring at his dark, solemn face. "Not many see it that simply."

Teal'c nodded once. "That is true. But I am not one of those."

She smiled sadly. "Well, they do need all the doctors they can get right now. I would be honored to have your assistance."

"And I, honored to provide it."

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

As Daniel went down the hall, he automatically avoided most of the soldiers walking the opposite way. He debated on returning to the infirmary to face Janet's wrath for sneaking out against medical advice or locating Jack to see how he'd done. Deep in thought, he collided with a hard object that sent him crashing to the floor.

"Hey! Watch where you're going, Graham!" a voice grumbled above his head. Another sounding exactly the same spoke up to his left.

"You okay, Doctor Jackson?"

Dazed, Daniel looked up and thought he saw double—two very concerned looking Silers looking down at him before one glanced at the offender.

"Graham, General Maybourne said to behave," the Siler in the blue flightsuit scolded as he would a kid. "This isn't our base. We're their guests. Slow down there. You okay, Doctor Jackson?"

"Yes," Daniel said faintly, blinking as he realized the two Silers were still there. He got up with their help and rubbed his eyes.

"No," one Siler said, straightening out his SGC uniform. "You're not seeing double, Doctor Jackson. Thought me and...uh...myself would exchange notes about the Asgard hard drive. See where he can boost power in a Stargate when he finds one in case the naquada reactor Major Carter fixed up doesn't work."

"Oh." Brushing his own BDUs, Daniel blinked, guiltily realizing he hadn't even given a thought to the tablets at all. "That's a good idea." He looked at the alternate reality's Simmons. "Hello. I guess this would be the first time we've...uh...met. Well for me, that is."

Simmons swept his eyes up and down Daniel. The archeologist shifted, uncomfortable.

"I hear Graham has a twin too," the alternate Siler commented as he yanked at the blue flightsuit given to him. "Haven't seen him around though."

"Oh, he's still on a mission. Was assigned to SG-11 for now," Daniel said absently, mentally wondering why Simmons was scanning him so intently that it made his skin crawl. "They're not due to report back for another four days."

"Well, we'd better get back to work," the SGC Siler spoke up, clapping the rebel one on the shoulder. "Later, Doctor Jackson."

The rebel Siler stared at Daniel for a moment. "Uh, Doctor Jackson, I wanted to thank you. For getting me out of there." He stuck out his hand. "I owe you."

Awkwardly, Daniel accepted the gesture, feeling his face flush. "I should be telling you that. You tried to help me."

The two Silers grinned at him, and Daniel had to blink. It was a bit disconcerting. The Siler he knew was normally very serious, but apparently, meeting himself was a treat, and the two were hitting it off better than expected.

Daniel nodded to them, mildly amused at a few people's startled doubletakes as the two walked by, matching strides perfectly, chatting away as if meeting alternate reality's selves was nothing new. He turned back to Simmons and braved the unnerving stare again. He gave the young soldier a small, shy smile.

"How are you feeling?" Simmons asked abruptly.

Blinking, Daniel shrugged. "I've been better, but I'm okay." He winced as his body told him otherwise. "A bit of a headache," he reluctantly admitted when Simmons raised an eyebrow saying, "Really?"

"Do you need more neuar? I can ask the commander."

"No, no. I don't need it," Daniel said hastily.

"You sure?" the soldier pressed.

Startled, Daniel frowned. "I'm sure."

Simmons stepped back. "Didn't mean to imply that...you know. Just that back there in the sub, you were pretty bad off."

Daniel shook his head. What was the matter with him? All these doubles running around were probably getting him edgy. And his head was pounding to the point of distraction. He could have sworn he could feel the sting of the wounds on his temples pulsating in unison with his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound ungrateful. I'm still sort of jumpy." He gave a weak smile as an apology.

Simmons nodded. "I suppose with Ra coming in a little over two and a half days, we're all on edge." He seemed skittish himself, his hands alternating between going from pockets to folding in front of him as if he was cold. Pacing, shifting from one foot to the next, Simmons looked ready to take off.

"Are you okay?" Daniel asked softly.

"Nerves," was Simmons' curt reply. He gave Daniel another look. "Nice base you got here."

For some reason, Daniel was bothered by the brash tones in this Simmons' voice, accustomed to the soft tones of the younger soldier. He stood there as others walked around them, wondering what had changed this man.

"So you guys beat Ra," Simmons said flatly. "How does it feel?"

Daniel blinked. "Feel?"

"You're free, not under his reign."

"We have Apophis to contend with. And a few others to defend our planet from," Daniel said, fidgeting nervously.

"Defend?" Simmons repeated flatly. "We're still trying to take ours back." He leaned forward, and Daniel was taken aback by the glare in Simmons' eyes. "You're lucky," the soldier breathed.

Daniel stared at the dark orbs, saw his own face reflected off them and edged away. Simmons, acting as if he'd just realized what he'd done, gave Daniel a grim smile that sent chills down the archeologist's arms.

"Nerves," Graham said shortly and left Daniel standing there.

Suppressing a shiver, Daniel rubbed his thumb over shut eyes, his headache back. He opened them again and eyed Simmons' retreating back.

_"You're lucky."_

Daniel frowned. Where had he heard that before?

Head throbbing, Daniel's vision blurred, and he shook his head. He hated to admit it, but he'd better go back to the infirmary and wave the white flag. He never thought he would see the day he would voluntarily head for medical treatment.

_Janet will have a fit_, he thought as he shakily walked down the hallway in the opposite direction to the infirmary.


	38. Chapter 37

**CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN**

After a few hours of checking on comrades, finding out when the briefing was, then checking on Daniel who was amazingly back in the infirmary, John O'Neill finally found enough nerve to head for the guest suite where they had been quartered for the past few days.

John paused at the door. Maybe he was making a mistake. He started to turn when the door opened. Sammy Hansen's face peered through the crack.

"Took you long enough," she griped, opening the door wider.

John stepped back. "Sir?"

"He's asleep, but you can take over watch if you want." She made a show of massaging her neck. "I'm going to check on the others and sack out."

Dismayed, staring at the huddled shadow on the bed, John swallowed.

Hansen stepped out of the room. "Either way, Captain, I'm going. I need to be ready for the briefing tomorrow, and I plan on making use of their hospitality. You don't go in, and he'll be by himself."

"I—"

"I can make it an order," Hansen added mildly, noting the flush in John's neck as he shot her a glare.

John stared at the open door, took a deep breath and walked in, the guard closing the door behind him.

The room was bathed in darkness; the lamp by the end table was turned towards the center of the room, away from the bed pushed up against the wall. John could see Dan covered with several blankets facing the wall, sleeping, oblivious to whoever was here. Irrationally, John was glad Dan was asleep. It made it easier to sit and just watch, guard his slumber than hear him speak, hear Dan lie to him one more time about how he was okay to ears more than willing to believe it.

Staggering to the couch, still perpendicular to the bed as he last recalled, John gingerly sat down, taking care to make no sound. He watched Dan for a few minutes before sighing softly and leaned back against the couch.

_"Don't do this to him. Don't make him go, knowing you're going to follow. Leave him some hope." _

Hope? How the hell was John supposed to give Dan hope? The petty promises, vows of victory, they were empty, bitter tasting every time John said them. But behind the words, he did keep a bit of hope that when they won, he could find Dan a cure. It was the only thing keeping him going. The same concept helped him survive the hate-filled screaming of the miners in Abydos, helped him wash the blood from his hands, and kept back the guilt for being responsible for dishing out more misery to those people. To know his family would be spared, to know they would be safe.

What a crock.

John choked down a strangled laugh. The joke was on him. While he toiled as a slave, worked hard enough to catch Seth's eye as a worthy upper level guard, rising to Overseer, John's family, his only reason for enduring that whole damn year, was being divided up like cattle and scattered across the universe to other mines. And the only one he got back—

Was now leaving him.

He dropped his head into his hands. When was this going to be over? When? When could he finally sleep and not worry about being discovered as a spy, not worry about Dan, not worry about whether they'd get Ra or if he was going to survive another day in the mines before another bitter miner tried to drive a knife into his back?

John felt so old. The war felt too long. And everything he was sure so of- beating Ra, saving Dan, finding his family, had shattered into bloody pieces in his hands, trickling down between his fingers, scratching him with taunting, empty promises as they fell.

"You just going to sit there?"

He started at the soft whisper coming from the bed. John raised his head and saw Dan roll over onto his back with eyes open towards the ceiling.

"Sammy told me the meeting's on tomorrow morning after Daniel and I work on the two tablets." Dan listlessly picked at his blanket. "They're going to talk about how we're planning to attack, who gets to go, and who stays." He paused. Dan went on tightly, turning his face towards John, "And I'm going with them."

John said nothing.

Dan turned his head slightly. "What? No arguments? No protests?" He snorted, turning his head back towards the ceiling.

"I didn't mean to wake you," John croaked. He started to rise. He didn't want to hear Dan ask him to leave. He'd rather go before he heard it again.

"No. Stay. I...It's okay..."

Surprised, John sat down again. Dan didn't say anything else, just lay there breathing in and out with his hands folded over his stomach.

For the longest time, the two men said nothing, hidden within their own darkness, neither sure of what to say, both waiting for the other to start. John sat within the shadowy area of the couch, staring ahead, away from Dan, wondering how he could begin to say anything. Or even tell Dan that he knew when he couldn't even bear to hear it himself.

Jack O'Neill said they both had to be strong. But all John saw was a man who could have been him, basically pinning him down with words and who spoke out loud of a child they'd both lost and who could still stare back at him with grim faced determination.

Strong.

John didn't know if he could be any more.

All he felt was tired.

Dead inside.

Maybe Dan wasn't the only one dying.

John bowed his neck, willing that last thought to get the hell out of his head.

Hearing the quiet rustle of fabric brushing against fabric as John moved, Dan sighed out loud. "So much," Dan laughed sadly. "So much for keeping it a secret."

John closed his eyes.

"I mean...you wouldn't be here if you didn't know what I was trying to do, right? I mean, otherwise, I would still be here, pretending to sleep."

"Regardless, I shouldn't have stayed away," whispered John. "I should have been here."

"All the more reason to keep you away."

"Why?" John blurted. "Why? Why won't you let me help you? Let me do _something_!"

"Do what?" Sitting up shakily, Dan shook his head. "What? Snap your fingers and declared me cured? Healed? What could you have done? I don't want you to sit here watching me waste away to some raving, slobbering vegetable!"

"Don't say that!"

"I didn't want to give you the choice!" Dan shouted. He winced, a hand going to his chest. He waved John off, sensing more than hearing his brother rising.

"Dan—"

"Let me finish. Then, then go." Dan swallowed. He ran his tongue over his lower lip and heard John's sound of dismay. "We both know what's wrong with me and there's nothing more you can do."

"I—"

Dan raised his hand, pleading. "Let me finish. Please." He waited until he heard John sit down on the couch and took a deep breath, swallowing back the gasp as his chest flared in agony. "I know what's going to happen to me, John. You never told me because back then there was still a chance to help me."

John opened his mouth to say there still was, but Dan's set jaw made him stop and wait.

"But I know. I hear things. No one has ever survived removing the _re'klya_. _No one_, John. Telling me, telling yourself that I'll be that one miracle to break the rules won't work. And me stuck with these _things_. I'll slowly go down the same path as every other victim." Dan lowered his head. "I know you heard about Jonas Hansen."

John started. "How did you—"

"Just because you wouldn't tell me didn't mean others wouldn't. I know what happened to him and what Sammy did in the end."

John turned his head.

"I don't want it to come to that, John."

"Me either," John whispered, finally having to say something.

"No. You don't understand. I don't want it to come to that—you...having to decide to pull the trigger."

John bowed his head. He turned in his seat, away from Dan, from the voice that was now so calm, so accepting.

"I won't do that to you. I can't. I—" Dan choked back a sob. "God, he was right...I _am_ a coward."

John sharply turned his attention back to Dan. His younger brother covered his face with his hands, shuddering.

"I wish everything was purely unselfish, but I don't want you to see me like that, John. Not that way. I don't want the last thing you remember of me to be..." Dan couldn't finish. He leaned towards the wall, shivering. "You told me over and over again how it'd all be okay, and I'd get better, but we both know. We both know that's not going to happen in this lifetime and hearing you say it..." Dan closed his eyes. "Hearing you say it makes me even more scared, John. I'm sorry, but it does."

"I didn't know. God, I didn't know. I really believe you could get better, Dan. I did," John whispered hoarsely.

"And what about now?" Dan asked softly.

John clenched his eyes shut.

"John...when I become too lost to come back..." Dan covered his mouth with a hand. His next words were muffled, but John could hear them cracking at every syllable.

"When I am too lost, Sammy's going—"

John bit his lower lip so hard it bled. "When the time comes, I'll be there. I'll do it for you."

Dan's head shot up. "No! I can't ask you to—"

John went over and sat down on the bed. He forced himself to gulp the hard knot lodged in his throat and made sure his voice was steady. Then, he placed his hands on Dan's shoulders.

"Let me," John said, keeping his voice steady. "Let me be there for you. Let me...If you go too far, I'll make sure you won't suffer any more. Let me do that much for you."

Dan dropped his head, brushing against the inner side of John's forearms. John could feel his whole body shake, but he didn't dare bring his younger brother closer. Not yet. Not if Dan didn't want it.

"I can't ask that of you."

"You're not. I am."

Letting out a soft sob, the sharp exhalation of breath blowing against his long bangs and parting them for a moment, Dan sat there, saying nothing.

Then, he slowly nodded.

John pulled Dan closer, letting Dan's head rest at last on his shoulder, his arms going around tighter. John's chin rested on Dan's hair. John didn't say anything. He couldn't. Somehow thank you didn't feel appropriate for what Dan had just granted him.

A chance to watch him die.

The captain's arms tightened further, possessively around Dan, his chest aching with an agony he hadn't felt since he and Dan had heard the gunshot up in the master bedroom, Sara's screaming in denial as she got there first and found their son. It was a pain, an excruciating pain that grew and grew. And it only promised to get worse when the moment finally arrived like a dark villain lurking in wait behind the curtains of his mind. And for the first time in his life, John was terrified of encountering his old nemesis again.

Dan's shivering increased as if heightened by John's own fear. His voice was muffled, barely audible, but the words vibrated against John's chest.

"I'm scared."

_Me, too._ John turned his head until his cheek was brushing against Dan's hair, the damned _re'klya_ digging into his shoulder through his flightsuit. John pulled his brother in even tighter.

"It'll be okay, Danny."

A strangled sound responded to the nickname. John closed his eyes.

"We'll get through this," John croaked. "I won't let you down again. I swear."

Dan's arms weakly went up and around John's back. Dan said nothing, soft sounds of distress quivering against John's clothing, but no hot tears dampened the fabric. The two men knew the real tears would come when the moment finally arrived to separate them.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

_"It is good to see you again, our Beloved."_

_Hands swept over him. He felt a wave of disgust, revulsion threatening to choke him as the touches cascaded over him non-stop._

_"Jan—" _

_No, this wasn't her._

_"Did you miss us?" _

_Eyes glowing. God, the pure evil he saw in once familiar eyes._

_"Not really." _

_"Don't touch him!" _

_His friends were so far away. No one could help him._

_"You never should have said no. We would have embraced you as our mate, and you would have held a position among gods."_

_He never should have weakened when he first met her. Now she haunted him everywhere he went._

_"...told us where our Beloved was hidden...we would reward...if he gives us the base."_

_There was something else._

_"He will not tell you..."_

_Something important._

_"...Be ready for me..."_

_Someone bad was coming. Very bad._

_"...Che mar, he comes..."_

_What was it? What were they saying?_

_Claws scratched his body as he tried to escape, not letting him leave or come closer to any sort of recollection. Flashes exploded in front of him of a woman with red hair, a woman with glowing eyes, a cell room that felt so cold, the hot agony of the devices slowly being pulled out of him. Hurts. Everything hurts..._

Daniel gasped, his legs kicking as he woke. Eyes open, he stiffened when he saw nothing but darkness, and his hands flew up to his face.

No _re'klya_.

_Stupid! Stupid! Of course it's dark. They turned off the infirmary's lights so everyone could sleep_, he scolded himself, trying to get his heart to slow down to a reasonable pace.

Slowly, Daniel sat up, grimacing as he realized his t-shirt was twisted around his torso, sweaty from the mind bending dreams. No, make that nightmares. He shakily reached for his glasses on the nearby table, his vision too blurry to try and make out anything beyond the curtain around his bed. His fingers felt the thin wire, fumbled, and he felt his glasses drop to the floor.

Daniel froze as he heard them drop, but there were no sounds of glass shattering. Groaning mentally to himself, he gingerly got off the bed, went down on his knees, and felt around for his eyewear. He wished he'd thought of clicking on the light, but that meant wandering aimlessly with blurry sight, trying to look for a very small switch. So instead, he opted to grope around the floor, palms slapping against the tiles, searching.

There.

With a sigh of relief, he unfolded the wire frames and slipped them on with his eyes closed. Then, with a muttered prayer, Daniel opened his eyes.

His shoulders slumped.

Although he could discern the shapes, everything wasn't as crystal clear as they were before the _re'klya_. After he'd returned to the infirmary to a scene of chaos as Frasier tried to calm rebels down enough to examine them and Teal'c resorted to looking intimidating to get the rest to just sit, Doctor Warner had his eyes checked. They were now at 200/200.

Not perfect but getting better. It just felt to Daniel it wasn't fast enough.

Sitting on the floor, everything still too dark for his taste, Daniel decided he wasn't going to get any sleep anyway and might as well head for his office where he could turn on the lights and maybe get something done with the tablets.

Clutching the bed edge, Daniel pulled himself up. He snagged the dark blue bathrobe hanging on the back of the chair placed by the bed, shrugged it on, and wrapped the flaps tightly around himself with a quick flip of the ties. Remnants of the dream clung to him, and now everything felt too cold. He slid his feet into the standard slippers they always left by the beds and tentatively took a step, then another, relieved when it looked like his legs were going to cooperate and not embarrass him by dropping him back down onto the floor. Daniel rubbed his eyes under his glasses and stared in dismay at how far away the exit seemed to be.

_Either walk and get stuff done or stay here staring at the ceiling, Jackson._

Daniel rounded his shoulders back and carefully made his way to the exit, gaze glued to the double doors. He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering, the darkness of the room too familiar for his liking. His steps quickened automatically, and he suddenly found himself at the door. Daniel blinked, casting a worried look over his shoulder.

The beds were filled with soldiers, many faces he'd never seen before, rebels who were wounded during their escape, minor injuries. Daniel guiltily realized he hadn't even noticed while he was too wrapped up in his own thoughts about Ra, about going home, to remember people had died to save him.

Daniel swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as his stomach churned. How many were left behind? How many died on that submarine?

Shouting echoed in his memory; the feeling of cold water lapping around his ankles made him twitch. Daniel tugged at the tied ends of his robe a bit more tightly to trap the warmth in. He wondered briefly why it felt too quiet in here, and it occurred to him he was listening for the humming of a submarine's engines.

Shaking his head, Daniel pushed the doors open and walked out of the dark infirmary.

A coffee mug swooped right down in front of him. Daniel yelped, jumping back a step until a hand grabbed him by the elbow before he could fall backwards into the double doors.

"Figured you would try to make a break for it," Jack whispered, his face now in front of Daniel. He let go of Jackson's elbow and grinned crookedly.

"Jack?" Daniel stared in disbelief. "W-what are you doing here?"

Crooking an eyebrow high on his forehead, Jack shrugged, taking a sip out of the mug he'd flashed in front of Daniel before. "Figured you were probably awake." Brown eyes critically scanned Daniel up and down. "You look like shit."

Daniel pursed his lips, pulling the flaps of his robe tighter around him.

"Come on." Jack waved at Daniel and turned, facing the hallway. Jack paused when he realized Daniel wasn't following. He looked over his shoulder impatiently.

"Where are we going?" Daniel asked, frowning.

Jack rolled his eyes, exasperated. "You were sneaking out to go to your office, right? Well, come on. We saved you a cup."

"We?" echoed Daniel, but he followed slowly behind anyway.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

General Hammond came out of his office after an exhausting talk with the authorities on the other end of the red phone. While he agreed with their concerns about the portal,

The idea of sealing the portal, preventing them from going through and the rebels from turning to them for help churned Hammond's stomach. Too many familiar faces to forget so easily. He couldn't.

The telephone conversation ended with a "We'll see" instead.

Undoing his jacket, Hammond eyed the room outside his office and noted the shadow was still standing by the window, observing the Stargate in the embarkation area below. That shadow had stood there since Hammond had returned from checking in the infirmary. For nearly four hours, the form had been statue still, yet the posture told him the shadowy figure was still alert enough to straighten those shoulders.

The general eyed his coffeepot and shook his head. Getting up, he poured himself a cup and after a brief moment of hesitation, poured another one. He carried both outside to the briefing room.

Approaching the shadow until the features of General Maybourne were visible in the light streaming in from the embarkation room, Hammond extended one mug to the rebel leader.

Maybourne looked down at it, staring at it as if he'd never seen one before.

"Figured you'd have a long night ahead of you," the SGC general said quietly, waiting until Maybourne finally wrapped his hand around the cup.

"Thank you." Maybourne lifted it to his nose and took a deep sniff. He gave Hammond a brief smile. "Would you believe it's been three years since I had my last cup?" He lifted his cup up to Hammond in a mock toast and gingerly took a sip. Eyebrow up, Maybourne pulled the mug away. "Is it just me or you guys just have better coffee?"

Hammond grunted as he took a sip himself. The coffee, in his opinion, had been sitting in his pot for too long. "Three years can make anything taste better."

Maybourne nodded absently. "I suppose." He took another sip, smacking his lips. "I think...the last cup I had was probably the best tasting one."

It struck Hammond that Maybourne, the Maybourne in _his_ reality, wouldn't be standing here having idle conversation.

"Was sitting in one of the subs back in Antarctica," Maybourne paused as he took another sip, his eyes still on the Stargate. "We were selected to ready the Beta Stargate found there and wait for the UN meeting to conclude with our visitors from outer space. I was sitting there, watching these...I can't even say soldiers. Kids, more like it. Running around like their butts were on fire." Maybourne shrugged with a sheepish grin. "Back then, I was sort of a stiff board, everything by the book."

"I see." Hammond bit back a smile, hiding the attempt behind his coffee mug as he drank.

Maybourne looked at him sideways. "Yeah. Anyway...I'm sitting there, overhearing Commander Hansen's husband on the radio in the other sub, them not knowing I could hear every word." He smiled, chuckling. Hammond didn't understand and looked at the other general, puzzled. Shaking his head, Maybourne murmured, "You had to be there to understand." Maybourne scratched his chin. "Sitting there, listening to the radio, watching the young pups play soldier, it occurred to me what a monumental moment that was. We were finally contacting aliens, all our research, our top secret goings-on in Area 51 and NID, were paying off. I sat there, feeling very...well...very pleased with myself as I sipped my coffee." Maybourne paused, his eyes darkening.

"And then we heard Cheyenne was attacked, and my men sighted death gliders heading our way. We dove under the ice so fast, my coffee spilled. Permanently stained my desk."

Hammond nodded, face grim.

Maybourne smiled tiredly before he turned around and set the mug deliberately on the table. "No offense, General. But I think I would rather wait for the chance to drink coffee back in my reality."

Lifting his cup in mutual agreement, Hammond nodded. "That would be one hell of a cup of coffee, General."

"Damn, right."

The two men stared at each other with a silent understanding, war making men who were enemies elsewhere into understanding comrades and friends. Then, as if on cue, they both turned to stare at the Stargate through the window.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

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Daniel blinked when he saw who was already in his office.

"Guess you were right, sir," Sam said cheerfully as she tilted her mug back and took a sip. "He did try to sneak out. I owe you ten dollars." She was seated on one of the chairs by his bookshelves next to Teal'c. The Jaffa nodded his head at Daniel.

"Daniel Jackson."

"Uh...hey, Teal'c." The archeologist rubbed his eyes and turned to look at Jack's smirk.

"What can I say, Daniel?" Jack gave him a gentle push towards a chair by the computer. "There are times when you can be so freaking predictable." O'Neill made his way around the table and plopped down backwards on the only empty chair left. He nodded towards a lone mug at the corner of the table and grinned. "That's yours."

Daniel shook his head. "When did my office become a briefing room?" he asked as he looped his fingers through the handle and brought the container close to him. He sat down, and his eyebrow went up when he peered inside and realized it wasn't coffee.

O'Neill didn't say anything, but everyone could see his smirk as he brought his cup up to his lips for a drink.

Daniel shot Jack a disbelieving look. "Warm milk?"

"O'Neill said it would be best if you did not drink coffee, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c explained.

"Janet did say none of that stuff for you for the time being," soothed Sam. "She's not sure how the neuar in your system will react to it."

Daniel glared at Jack.

The colonel had the gall to look innocent, not quite succeeding with the smirk on his face. "Hey, I said we saved you a cup. I didn't say anything about coffee."

"What about him?" Daniel complained in a huff as he sat the milk down with a face. "He had some neuar also."

Jack tilted his cup for him to see. "Just plain water, Danny boy. See?"

Daniel eyed Jack curiously.

"Trust me. Right now, it tastes real good." Smacking his lips, Jack emptied the mug with a sigh. "Their water had a funny taste in it. Never thought I would be so glad to drink my own stuff again."

"Considering where they were located, they probably had to use some sort of extraction method to get water from their surroundings," Sam mused out loud as she swiveled in her seat towards the computer. "Maybe a sort of salt filtration system or a purification of the ice in that cave you were telling me about before, sir." She fiddled with the keyboard, the screensaver of dancing Egyptians vanishing as the active blue screen returned.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Thank you for the fascinating lecture on H2O, Doctor Carter." He shook his head and rested it on top of the chair's back.

Daniel's eyes darted back and forth between his teammates. "Guys, why are we here?"

Carter blinked innocently at the question. "Well, billions of years ago, there was a small chemical implosion in the vac—"

"Carter!" Jack took his mug, pretending he was going to throw it at her. Teal'c raised his eyebrow at the colonel.

"Gotcha." Sam grinned. "Always wanted to do that. Saw it in a cartoon once."

Daniel sighed, shaking his head.

"Daniel?"

He raised his gaze and found Sam looking at him worriedly.

"We all couldn't sleep," Jack spoke from the back. He spun on his chair left and right. "Thought we might as well gawk at each other until the sun comes up."

"Why can't you sleep?" Puzzled, Daniel swiveled to Sam with concern.

Carter shrugged. "I don't know. This whole day has been too weird. Was on my bed and couldn't stop thinking."

"Typical," commented Jack. Sam shot him a glare.

"It was indeed a shock to see Major Carter's double," Teal'c intoned. "It was quite different to hear her referred to as Commander Hansen and not as Major Carter or Doctor Carter."

The men in the room pinned their gaze on Sam. The major flushed.

"And that's just it," she mumbled, flicking her fingers at the keyboard. "You all remember what...what he was like. Even now, I can't understand how she could have married such a man. I mean...Jonas...even before this project was a bit of an aggressive control freak. He was on the edge, on a tightrope. There was no way we could have lived under the same roof. No way." Carter shrugged. "When I heard my doppelganger being called Hansen, I mean...wow..."

"You're thinking of the Jonas Hansen you knew," Daniel pointed out. "But maybe he was different in her reality."

Jack nodded. "He has a point, Carter."

Sam shrugged. "It's just weird. I can't picture it. Like how I can't picture Jol—" She stopped, regret flashing across her face.

"I can't believe she's Jolinar," Daniel whispered.

After shooting Carter a glare, Jack nodded. "I have to admit, when I first saw her on that ship, I was taken aback as well. But you can tell she's a totally different person, Daniel."

"I know," whispered Daniel. "I know it's not Sha're...but..." He closed his eyes briefly. "I think back to when I couldn't see...some of her gestures, her manner of speaking, and it's so like S-Sha're. I..." His shoulders slumped.

Jack gazed sadly at Daniel's defeated expression. "But it's not her. It's Jolinar."

"I know. You keep reminding me. I just wish it was."

"I had a hard enough time accepting she was Jolinar, too," Sam admitted. Daniel looked at her, understanding. "I never really interacted with Jolinar when...you know..." She waved towards herself. "All I had was her memories, but I never got the impression of who she was really. It was like meeting her for the first time."

Jack agreed, grunting. "I know what you're saying. Every time I see Kawalsky, I can almost see the glowing eyes. But there he is—alive and kicking." He shook his head.

"It's so strange," Daniel whispered. "You half expect the same people in your reality would be there as well. But it's not. Some who are alive here are dead there. And those who are dead here are alive there."

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed. "Not every reality we have encountered had the same exact people." He frowned. "My own selves were quite different. They still served under Apophis." His eyes darkened, the only indication of his disapproval.

"It didn't mean they were bad," Daniel argued. "Just that they were serving their god. Their dedication could have been enforced long ago with fear, manipulation, and threatening their families." Daniel's blue eyes dulled. "Like—"

"John O'Neill," Jack said grimly. "He was consorting with the bad guys, but it didn't make him a candidate for the firing squad." He ruefully rubbed his chin, wincing at the bruise he could feel under his fingertips.

Daniel arched an eyebrow, noting the faint black and blue just below Jack's lower lip. "What happened to you?"

Grimacing, Jack drawled "Let's just say me, myself and I had a very interesting discussion, and we weren't sitting down having tea and crumpets."

Daniel swallowed. "Oh. I take it didn't go very well?"

"I wouldn't say that either. I opened his eyes." Stretching, Jack sat up straighter. "Besides, this _lovely_ gift from him wasn't because he hated my guts. It was because of you."

"Me?"

Carter turned sharply to her CO. "He blamed you for what happened to Daniel?" She waved towards the healing wounds on Daniel's temples.

The archeologist's hands flew up to his head automatically. "But Jack couldn't stop them from..." He swallowed, unable to finish. "No one could have stopped them." He could feel the guards' hands gripping him, pinning him down, Frasier's eyes visually molesting him, Hathor's smirk, looming over him. Their laughter roared in his ears as they boldly leaned forward to possess him, but his eyes were glued to the silver discs that came closer and closer...

"Daniel!"

Daniel started and jerked back when he saw Jack's tense face inches from his. How did Jack get over here so quickly? He tried to pull away, but Jack had him firmly held by the shoulders.

"Daniel?" Sam was looking over Jack anxiously, Teal'c stood over them all, his usual bland expression holding a hint of concern as well. "Daniel? Are you okay? You started shaking. We thought you were having a seizure or something!"

"I'm okay," he managed, shrugging away from Jack. "I'm okay. Some stuff is a bit vivid still."

_"...Che mar, he comes..."_

Daniel clenched his fists. "And some is not."

"Daniel?" Jack released his grip but didn't step back.

"Thought for a moment there, thought something was coming to me. Damn it, I can't remember!"

"Easy," Jack murmured, reaching out to Daniel with a hand, but Daniel jerked back, kicking his feet until his chair rolled away a few inches, slamming into the edge of his desk.

"No, it's important! I just...argh, I can't remember!" Frustrated, Daniel banged his fist on the table, dropping his head. Breathing heavily, he didn't continue.

Jack shook his head at Carter's silent inquiry, at her nod towards the door. He had a feeling this wasn't something Frasier could just make go away. If he knew Daniel, judging by the slumped posture, she was part of the problem. He gestured to everyone to just sit back down. He also sat down on his chair, pulling it closer to Daniel's seat and waited.

Fully aware of everyone's worried gaze on the top of his head, Daniel didn't speak. He only concentrated on breathing in and out, waiting for his lungs to loosen, his heart to calm before he even dared to lift his head up and face them after that humiliating outburst.

"It was a surprise to see Maybourne," Sam suddenly said to fill the silence.

Jack laughed on cue. "No kidding. Would you believe he's actually nice?"

"No!" she gasped dramatically.

"Really." O'Neill's chair creaked. "I actually like the guy."

"He did appear to be quite the honorable warrior, O'Neill," Teal'c said over Daniel's head.

"I was thinking more along the lines that he had more hair than our Maybourne."

Carter chuckled.

"You know he actually made a joke, too."

A mock gasp could be heard from Sam. "Sir! Are you sure?"

"Colonel Maybourne does not dispense humor."

"Yeah, but General Maybourne does. He said not to worry, he wasn't going to dissect us or anything."

"Oh God, that's amazing."

"How's that for a trip to Wonderland?"

"What is Wonder—"

"Never mind, Teal'c," Sam jumped in hastily. "I can't believe how different he is. I mean...compared to the Colonel Maybourne we know and interact with, it's a vast difference in personality and even body language—"

"War can change people," Daniel suddenly said, not raising his head.

The room fell silent.

Jack pursed his lips. He would have expected any of the soldiers here to say that, long time veterans with enough dark memories to say it with the dull tone of finality that Daniel just sported. But to hear it from Daniel.

Carter darted her eyes from O'Neill to Daniel, sadly noting the two had nothing more to say. They had none of the light banter they often exchanged, which while sometimes heated, could be oddly reassuring. But they were both silent now, still deep in their own thoughts.

"It is fortunate this has not occurred in our reality," Teal'c spoke. "We have managed to grasp our own fate and avoided such outcomes."

"We were lucky," Daniel said bitterly.

"I wouldn't call it luck," Jack interjected.

"Then what would you call it?"

Sam watched the exchange with a growing dread. They were talking again, but she didn't like what she was hearing.

"I don't call it anything, Daniel. I just call it a different way of things ending up."

"That doesn't seem fair." Lifting a heavy head, Daniel wearily looked back at Jack, ignoring the others. "Some things are so different over there, Jack. Some good, some bad...very bad. Sometimes," Daniel sighed, shaking his head. "Sometimes I really have to wonder what we each did that made our reality as it is."

"Like I said before, I don't think about it. I'm just glad." Getting up, the conversation giving him a bad taste, Jack walked around the room, heading for the bookcases. He leaned on the shelves casually, eyes drifting to one volume he recalled seeing back in the sub. When he turned back to Daniel, saw his gaze fixed there as well, Jack knew he was thinking of the same thing. Deliberately, Jack turned to Carter.

"What about you, Carter? Do you wonder how we ended up with the good roll of the dice?"

Sam blinked, caught off guard. "Me, sir? Well, every choice we make branches—"

Jack waved his hand, shaking his head. "No, I don't want the Einstein theory, I want _your_ theory."

She bit her lower lip and shrugged.

Jack arched his eyebrow. "That's it? Just," he imitated her, shrugging his own shoulders. "Just that? Nothing fancier?"

"It is hard to determine what has changed our destiny, O'Neill," Teal'c said. He fixed his gaze on Daniel. "But as I have said once before, our reality is the only one of consequence."

"But that seems so cold, though," murmured Daniel with a sad turn of the mouth. "We can't just be grateful we got off lucky and ignore the rest."

"I did not say that, Daniel Jackson."

Daniel looked up at Teal'c.

Teal'c stood there, straight and tall, his voice firm. "Ours is the only one of consequence, yes. But it also means we should endeavor to ensure other realities can embrace the same result."

"What result is that?" Jack asked from his spot, arms folded as he waited for the response.

Teal'c didn't look at Jack. He fixed his eyes on Daniel instead. "Freedom."

Jack smiled to himself. _Attaboy, big guy._

"Ra can't stay there," Daniel said determinedly, squaring his shoulders.

"Nope. And we're going to give him his eviction notice when he arrives," Jack cheerfully replied. "We have everything we need to get into his place, right?" He looked around the room.

"We have both tablets," Daniel spoke up.

"And Dan O'Neill has discovered a key to open the inner mazes as well," Teal'c added.

Daniel frowned. "Key?"

"The pendant Catherine Langford often wears around her neck." The Jaffa had a grim look on his face. "Dan O'Neill mentioned briefly they no longer have the key in their reality. It was quite fortunate we did."

Sam frowned as well. "No longer have?" She tapped her foot, thinking. "What? You mean she lost it? It was destroyed?"

"She's probably dead," was Daniel's response.

Jack whipped back at Daniel. "Daniel, you don't know that."

"I just have this _really_ bad feeling that's what probably happened." Daniel shrugged, pretending it didn't bother him, but he could feel Jack's gaze boring through his head. To hide from it, Daniel pulled his mug to his lips, acting as if he was drinking the warm milk. But when he lowered the mug and caught Jack's eye, Jackson knew O'Neill wasn't fooled. "Happened when I was in the other reality the first time."

Daniel pulled his glasses up and rubbed his eyes wearily with the heel of his hand. "Back then, she got me out. Dialed the Stargate to send me back, then let down the shield so the guards couldn't reach me." He laughed sadly. "She said...she said she sort of owed me." He looked at his friends. "Me? I would say it was the other way around. She died saving my life."

"It was the other Catherine Langford who perished, Daniel Jackson."

"Right," Jack murmured, shaking off the gut twisting sensation at Daniel's recollection. "She's alive and well over here, Daniel."

Daniel tiredly nodded. "And because of it, we have this key that they never would have had in the first place. So that means, they never would have had a chance to get to Ra had they not stumbled through to our reality."

Jack clenched his jaw. He'd just been thinking the same thing.

"God, do you know how creepy that sounds?" Daniel shook his head, then dropped it to his chair support, staring at the ceiling. He let his arms dangle down. "We have to help these people, Jack."

"We will."

"The Asgards will stop them, Daniel," Sam jumped in. "We have the reactor and the hard drive. All we need is—"

"A Stargate," Jack finished with a grim tone. "Which they no longer have because they blew theirs up."

"There's still the one in Cheyenne, sir." Tapping her chin with her index finger, Sam gave it some thought. "It's just a matter of getting to it."

Daniel watched as the ceiling blurred. He took off his glasses and closed his eyes. "And what about Ra?"

"We do the tried and true method," quipped Jack.

Daniel wryly smiled. "Blow him up into little tiny bits?"

"Oh yeah. That's the ticket!"

Everyone chuckled softly. The sounds faded away and fell back into stillness, but it was a more comfortable silence now. Enclosed inside the cluttered office, Daniel could hear their breathing, reminding him of those nights on missions when he couldn't sleep. He would lie there in his sleeping bag, waiting for his turn at watch, just taking comfort in the sounds of the slow pace of their breathing and activity.

"God, it's great to be back," Jack suddenly said.

Daniel nodded in silent agreement.

"Okay, kids. It's now officially late. Shoo. Go to bed. You too, Daniel." Jack rose from his chair, grimacing as he felt his back pop. He rubbed at one spot, mentally noting he couldn't even feel the aches from the whippings now and smiled. It faded when he cast his gaze on Daniel, who was still sitting there, eyes closed, head towards the ceiling. "We've got briefing in less than six hours. I want everyone perky tomorrow. Go. That's an order."

"Night, sir," Sam murmured, reluctantly getting up.

Teal'c bowed his head as his way of bidding them good night and left.

Sam lingered a bit, watching Daniel's face and briefly thought of Jolinar. She wondered if Daniel was thinking of her or the face she wore. She impulsively placed her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Night, Daniel."

She only got a faint response from him. "Night, Sam."

Jack nodded as she murmured good night to him, waiting until he and Daniel were the only two left. He then stepped away from the shelves and sat down on a chair, rolling it towards the archeologist, using his feet like paddles. He stopped within a foot from where Daniel was, chair backed up against the table and waited.

"Night, Jack," Daniel wearily said without moving.

Jack stayed where he was.

Daniel raised his head, opening his eyes. "Good night, Jack."

"Good night, Daniel," Jack said innocently but stayed where he was.

Sighing, Daniel stood. "Look, I'm not really tired, and I thought I might as well go to the labs and get a head start on the tablets before Dan gets there."

"It can wait 'til tomorrow. We've still got three days and eight hours," Jack reminded him.

"It's only three days, Jack." Daniel raised his mug, intending to move it to his computer, readying to sit down and get to work.

Jack watched Daniel stand there in front of his computer, holding his cup and quietly asked him the one question he hadn't dared bring up before, the one question that had nagged him since he'd found Daniel caught in his nightmare.

"Who's Lily?"

Daniel's arm jerked, and the mug dropped, impacting with the edge of the desk, spilling the milk before crashing into bits on the floor by his feet.

Daniel stammered, crouching down. "I miscalculated the distance. Still can't see too clearly—"

Jack narrowed his eyes as he watched Daniel ramble on, hands frantically hovering over the broken pieces as if trying to figure a way to piece it all back together again. Suddenly, Daniel gave up, kneeling there, elbows braced over his bent knees with his head bowed.

"You didn't answer my question, Daniel."

Daniel closed his eyes.

"Is she why you're like this right now? Was she the difference between you and Dan? Was she what happened in that park in '71?"

Daniel shrugged listlessly.

"I'm not trying to meddle," Jack began.

Daniel snorted.

"_But_," Jack stressed, ignoring the response. "I'm worried."

Surprised, Daniel glanced sideways at him.

Jack sat up. "What? I am!" He waved a finger at him in mock anger. "And if you let that get around the base, I swear I'll have you tarred and feathered before I shove you out of the Stargate to whatever P something planet we go to!"

Giving Jack a wan smile, Daniel shook his head. He stared at the broken bits on the floor.

"Daniel?"

Rocking on his heels, Daniel sighed out loud. "If I just say she's a person I am _very_ glad I got away from, would you leave it alone?"

Pursing his lips, eyebrows going up and down, Jack gave it some thought. "Maybe."

Daniel's shoulders slumped. "I really don't want to talk about her, Jack."

Staring at the shattered pieces of pottery on the floor, Daniel didn't answer. He sat there, rocking on his heels. He could almost hear her screaming at him, calling him all sorts of names, him sitting there too scared to try and pick up the broken glass which would have appeased her quickly. No, he'd sat there as a kid, shaking, wondering why she was like this to him, unable to understand then that she was sick in the mind, and it had nothing to do with him.

Jack watched Daniel, his brow furrowing. "That bad?"

Daniel shrugged.

Sighing, Jack realized it was the most he was going to get out of the archeologist for the moment. He got up and went over to his friend. Daniel looked up blearily.

"Get up," Jack said, extending his hand. "Here, let me help you."

Daniel smiled at the hand offered to him. "It's okay. You don't need to help me."

"What if I _want_ to help you?"

Wide eyes flew to Jack's face. They crinkled as Daniel smiled again.

"That's usually enough." He got up on his own, gazing down at the broken mug. Daniel looked away, wearily massaging his neck with a hand.

"Promise me something," Jack said abruptly.

Daniel stopped and turned to him.

"Promise me you save thinking for this mission until the end?"

Frowning, Daniel showed he didn't understand.

Jack waved at the mug, then at Daniel. "Stop thinking about why, how come, and all that stuff. It'll mess with you. Can even get you killed. Promise me this stops here." He stared at Daniel. "And I promise you I won't ask again for this entire mission."

"For the entire mission?" Pretending to think it over, Daniel shrugged. "I don't know. Not much of a deal."

"Hey, I'm not telling you to stop thinking for good!" Jack waved his hands at Daniel. "That's like telling Carter to use only one syllable words or English. Can't be done. Some things you can't mess with in the universe. Just for this mission. Just get the job done, and stay alive. That's all I ask. No moral issues, no deep thoughts, just survive."

Daniel looked at Jack. "I can do that."

"I hope so." Jack clapped Daniel on the shoulder. He raised his wrist, revealing the bracelet still wrapped around it. "Because the moment we get home and I can take this off, I am going to sit down with you, and we're going to have that talk."

Something flickered in Daniel's eyes. "It's all right. I'm ok."

"Look, you've been saying that since day one. This talk is going to get done whether you like it or not. So next time when you say you're _okay_, I can believe it." Jack gave the shoulder a shake. "Do I make myself clear? Or do I have to tattoo it on your forehead?"

"Loud and clear." Daniel weakly smiled.

Jack pulled Daniel by the shoulder, steering him towards the door. "Good. Then you go beddy bye, and I'll see you in the morning."

"But—"

"Go before I tape you down on that bed." Giving Daniel a firmer push, taking care not to push too hard, Jack watched as Daniel nodded tiredly. As the archeologist left the office, Jack took another glance at the floor and the broken pieces. His eyes dulled, saddened, as he pulled the door shut on its wreckage.

SG1SG1SG1

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John peered down at Dan, who was leaning heavily against him. The younger man had shifted over, giving John some space, and the two brothers had sat on the bed for John didn't know how long.

_"I won't let you down again. I swear."_

John closed his eyes. After that promise, no more words were exchanged. He spent the rest of the time sitting next to Dan, his hand rubbing his brother's arm up and down, coaxing the shivering to dissipate long enough for Dan to go to sleep.

Knuckles brushing against thin, bony arms, John felt nauseous, realizing Dan was literally slipping away physically and soon mentally.

Could he really do it? Could John pull the trigger? Could he take the gun, put it against Dan's jaw and—

John's arm twitched on its own, screaming with its own denial of the horrible possibility. He shuddered.

"J-john?"

His eyes flew open, and he gazed down at Dan's curled up form. "Nothing, Mutt."

"It didn't feel like nothing."

He absently rubbed Dan's arm; his other hand brushed away a stray lock from over Dan's eyes. He jerked his hand back when the hair parted, revealing blank pupils. Even now, after all this time, he couldn't stand the sight of it on Dan.

"John?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking."

Dan chuckled weakly. "Dangerous thing to do."

"Tell me about it." John gave Dan's shoulders a squeeze. "Go back to sleep. Don't you have to see Daniel tomorrow and work on the tablets?"

"Yeah." Dan fell silent.

John snagged a corner of a blanket and draped it over both of them. He carefully tucked in the corners around Dan.

"John?"

"Yeah?"

Dan's voice was small. "Do...do you think we'll really beat Ra?"

John looked down at him, stunned. "Do you have any doubts?"

Quietly, almost nonexistent, Dan whispered, "Yes."

John tilted his head, resting his cheek on top of Dan's hair. "Sometimes...sometimes, me too. But not this time. I just know we can beat him." He sat up straighter and ruffled Dan's hair. "I mean, what are the chances of coming across another dimension? Right? And they're practically offering us the golden goose. Luck is on our side."

"Luck." Dan sat up higher as well.

"What? What is it?"

"Catherine's necklace." Dan extended his hands, patting the blankets for it. "She always said it was a good luck charm for her. Where is it? God, where did I put it?"

John reached out and grabbed Dan's hands. The younger brother stopped. John released the hands and slowly slipped his own hand behind him, to the pillow tucked between his back and the bed's headboard. His fingers brushed across metal, and he pulled out the necklace. Gingerly, he dropped it into Dan's hands.

"You stuck it behind the pillow," John reminded him, sadly realizing Dan couldn't even remember. The younger man nodded, fingers brushing the ornament. "Some things never change, huh?"

Dan nodded, a soft sigh escaping his lips. "And some things do." He reached out one hand, feeling John's face. His other hand brought the necklace over to his older brother. Shakily, Dan tried to loop it over John's neck, but he was shaking too much to achieve it until John dipped his head lower, letting the necklace drop. The charm rested against his collarbone.

"For luck," Dan said softly.

"Thanks," croaked John. He patted Dan on the shoulder, not trusting himself to speak further. Dan sighed and lowered his head against his arm.

"I'm tired, John. So tired."

John swallowed. "Then sleep. I'll be here."

Even in the dark, John could see the smile, feel the body relax further. Boneless, Dan sank down to the bed, guided by John's hands. The captain settled Dan in, pulling the blankets even higher. He retreated, still sitting on the bed and gazed down at Dan. His hand went up to the pendant, vaguely feeling the carved eye on it. How ironic he was going to wear Ra's symbol when he went to destroy him.

"For luck," John whispered. He leaned his head back against the headboard and spent the rest of the night staring at the darkness.


	39. Chapter 38

**CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT**

The mood around the table was subdued, sober.

On one end to Hammond's right, Jack, Carter and Teal'c were seated, their eyes red rimmed but alert. Across from them, Hansen and Jolinar were gazing back at them steadily. Each side of the table had the usual assortment of guards, their eyes wary, mixed with amazement as pairs of eyes darted back and forth like a tennis match, comparing faces. Simmons and both Silers were standing nearby as well. The two engineers were still scribbling notes, lost in their own conversation while Simmons was leaning against the wall, nervously drumming fingers against his folded arms.

"Colonel O'Neill?" Hammond spoke to fill the silence. "Have you seen Doctor Jackson this morning?"

Nodding, Jack fiddled with his pen, tapping it against the folder in front of him. "Yes, sir. He and Dan O'Neill were still trying to figure it out with Rothman when I left them." He winced, remembering how the two didn't even bother with the usual good mornings, getting right to work. He heard them talking, words rapidly gaining speed, muttering to themselves as they translated. Poor Rothman barely had a chance to get a word in edgewise.

Turning his attention to Carter, Hammond noted the major was staring at her double. He glanced sideways to the commander. He had to admit, the differences were astonishing. Where Carter wore a brimming curiosity characteristic of a scientist, Hansen's eyes were on her CO, back straight, shoulders back. She had no curiosity for her new surroundings, nor did she look even interested when Carter pulled out the plastic bag of bracelets.

"Are those them?" Hansen asked brusquely, nodding towards the circlets. "The jewelry Colonel O'Neill was wearing?"

"I told you," Jack grated out. "They're not jewelry."

"Uh huh." Staring at the wire loops, Hansen frowned. "They don't look like much."

"Very simplistic in form," Sam agreed. "But you can imagine the micro circuitry inside this thing. The metals I tested are not known to this planet or even related to any of the raw materials we found during our explorations. They seem to work on the basic principles of warping—"

"Do they work?" asked Hansen in a tight voice, sounding unimpressed.

Sam blinked. "Uh. Yes. They do." She raised her own wrist, revealing the bracelet.

"That's all I need to know," the commander said before turning to Maybourne, dismissing Sam immediately.

Jack's brow furrowed as Sam's mouth dropped slightly open. Before he could say anything, Hammond cleared his throat.

"I spoke with the President yesterday, and he would like an assessment of the damage to your planet before determining the extent of aid given."

Maybourne pursed his lips, thinking. "Damage? I guess all gone to hell wouldn't be accurate, huh?"

Hammond gave a thin smile to the joke and shook his head.

"Let's see..." General Maybourne stroked his chin with his hand, thinking. "Within a three year period, the Goa'ulds have been transporting our people off the planet at the rate of ten thousand every season." He looked grim. "That's forty thousand every year taken, traded, sold and sent to work as slaves for Ra. And I am not counting the hunts for every scholar, every academic who even hinted at having any language skills. Most of the structures in our country are relatively intact, with the exception of our libraries and schools. I can't verify the other countries. Details were sketchy. And the other leaders were too busy trying to collect more soldiers to fight to trade stories with us." The general leaned forward as he pursed his lips, thinking. "Surprisingly, he left most of the agricultural states untouched, even went as far as fertilizing bordering land to expand the growing crop regions. He drained all marshland and swampland south of the Carolinas and terraformed them to grow grain crops to feed his Jaffa and supply his ships."

Jack leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "Ships? Just how many ships?"

Hansen spoke, her voice harsh. "We've become a station for every Goa'uld ship Ra owns. He made sure no other system lord tried to take his glory away and left Jermak and Seth's ships orbiting our planet as sentries. Ra went from one system to another, showing off his power. Since his so called retaking of the first planet, as he would call it, he's become bold, testing the borders of a Goa'uld treaty rumored to have been set up a millennium ago."

"There were talks he and Seth were planning to move in on the smaller system lords' domains, expand his empire. He wanted to gain enough power to ensure no one would dispute his claim to rule." Tapping his fingers on the table, Maybourne snorted. "When he got our planet, it was the damn proverbial feather in his cap."

"Not trying to look down on ourselves, but even though we were his first planet of hosts, I can't really see how beating us would have been such a feat for his rep," Jack protested.

Jolinar glanced over to Maybourne, who nodded. "Tau'ri had always been shrouded with myth and legend of the tribe who dared rise above Ra's might. Try as he could, he could not destroy every piece of literature that told of this tale. I believe Orban had it as well, before Ra burned every city there to the ground. In fact, I heard Abydos had such a written record within its city walls."

"I know," murmured Jack, remembering the dark corridors he'd found Daniel and Sha're in, talking in a world and language of their own. "But you said we were a myth?" He looked over to Carter who shrugged. "How did a myth suddenly become the first major step to rising in power?"

"Many cultures evolved from myths and legends, Jack." Daniel's voice floated into the meeting room.

Everyone turned their heads towards the door. Daniel, Dan and his brother stood there in the entrance.

"Permission to join the briefing, General?" John asked quietly.

"Granted," Hammond and Maybourne chorused. The two officers started and looked at each other with matching arched eyebrows. Maybourne smiled, shrugging, and gestured towards him.

"Sorry, habit."

"Please be seated, gentlemen," Hammond said, smiling at the other general, not at all upset. "Doctor Jackson, you were saying?"

Daniel sat, nodding to Sam's silent inquiry into his well-being. Glancing down at the folder in front of him, at the almost innocent looking designated mission number tagged for this meeting, his jaw clenched. He pushed back his glasses, squinting at Hammond. "Oh...many cultures developed their beliefs, their way of living and even the way society is categorized based on myths. When we became a myth, we almost became a sort of...religion, you could say."

"Yeah," Dan muttered, shakily taking the glass of water from John. "What he said."

Daniel blinked in surprise but went on. "Ra's slaves all over the galaxy must have heard of Tau'ri, of Earth and dreamed of rebelling just like our ancestors did. While many may not have acted on it, that legend gave them hope. When Ra returned and your planet fell to his hands, that hope was gone." Daniel heaved a sigh, eyes sad. "Can you imagine slaves all over his reign, and how they must have felt when they heard? It must have felt like all hope was lost. Ra couldn't have asserted better control over his people. He reshaped their beliefs and with this, successfully squelched any possible seed of rebellion among his people."

"It is true." Nodding at Daniel, Teal'c agreed. "Among my people, we had heard such tales about the planet of the Tau'ri. We were forbidden to mention these legends. Apophis feared his control would fail if such tales were spread among his slaves."

"So you're saying," Maybourne spoke up quietly, "that we're basically the stuff legends are made of." He looked around the room grimly. "If we win, Ra could lose everything."

Dan nodded. "We go back, smack him in the ass and send him to hell. That would definitely get the rest of his people thinking."

"Gee," Maybourne looked over to Jack with a wry grin. "No pressure, huh?"

Jack chuckled, stopping at Hansen's scowl.

Clearing his throat, Hammond shook his head at Jack when he saw the colonel frown back at Hansen. He diverted the attention to the archeologists. "Doctors, have you figured out how the tablets work together?" inquired Hammond, noting the twin set in John's hands.

"We have, sir." Daniel reached out and accepted the tablets from John. "At first, we were wondering why when comparing the two tablets, there were gaps in between symbols. Both of them had them but in different places. Then when we realized they were to be combined together, the gaps filled each other. The words translated fine together when we combined them, but they didn't really make any sense. Just a bunch of numbers jumbled together. It didn't make any sense no matter how we tried until we overlapped them like this." He carefully stacked one tablet over the other and set it on the table in the center. "They fit over each other like two pieces of a puzzle." Daniel waved at the tablets. The two stone surfaces stacked together lay there quietly.

Jack arched his eyebrow. "And—"

Daniel raised his hand, giving Jack an exasperated expression. "Wait."

A soft humming could be heard from the twin stones. People around the table looked at each other nervously with the exception of Daniel, Dan and John. Teal'c's and Jolinar's only reactions were to tilt their heads at it curiously. The sound grew louder in pitch and began to visibly shake on its own.

"Uh," Jack hedged, leaning back in his chair, studying the objects apprehensively. He gripped the edge of the table, ready to push himself back. "Would now be a good time to duck?"

Daniel shook his head. "Trust me, we did that before and all it did was make us look—"

A laser beam shot up and spread out into an inverted triangle. Someone gasped from the back of the room.

"Foolish..." Daniel trailed off, his gaze caught by the golden light, the image inside the beam developing. Even now, for a second time, he still was amazed.

"Oh shit," the alternate version Siler murmured, and the pen he was nibbling on fell out of his slack-jawed mouth.

"Holy Hannah," Sam breathed, her hand out to touch the sharpening hologram of a rectangular three dimensional map, rotating slowly, alternating from left to right, top to bottom, revealing the many walls of a maze, a center chamber with three red flashing orbs inside. The walls of the miniature structure looked solid, but the moment her fingers touched the image, it scattered into millions of golden pixels and reformed into another image, this time a screen filled with Goa'uld lettering.

"It would appear to be directions for finding the entrance to the maze," Teal'c noted.

Dan nodded. "From what Daniel and Robert described to me, it looks like the pathway leading from either entrance at the four corners of the maze inside his ship, to the inner chambers where Ra is." He swallowed, fingers splayed out across the table. "He should be there at least until he shows up in the outer chambers and balcony for the execution ceremony."

"Which there will be none since you're not there," John interrupted.

"They're going to go through with it anyway or pretend to," Daniel said abruptly. "Because she and Jermak want Ra dead, too."

"Popular guy," Jack commented. He frowned down at his folder. "Okay, so we got one map, one jerk flying over to visit in three days, and what else?" He raised his head, looking around.

Dan smiled sadly. "And the key."

"Here." Pulling it out from inside his shirt, John revealed the eye of Horus pendant. "This opens the inner chambers. Only Ra or his queens can enter." He brushed a finger across the metal surface. "All the maps of where he transported the slaves and the codes to take down the shields for every ship around our planet should be in there."

"Only Ra's ship has this?" Carter questioned.

Hansen grunted, sitting back in her seat, staring at the SG-1 team sitting across from her. "From what our intelligence found, Ra is very paranoid. Seems like during his climb to power there were a few assassination attempts on his life. He moved all his information of the ships, the slaves, maps of his domain and even the locations of his queens hidden within his inner chambers. No one goes in there but his consorts or Seth. And even his consorts have one key which they make use of if they were summoned by his royal majesty."

Sam blinked. It was the most she'd ever heard her counterpart say. "So you need to get in his ship and get the maps for where everyone was taken?"

"And his ship," Maybourne said. He didn't seem bothered by the stares from the SG team or Hammond. "We need his ship or one of the others like it."

"Thinking of keeping a souvenir?" Jack joked.

"Killing Ra won't be the end of it." Remembering snatches of a conversation Kawalsky had with Jolinar, Daniel gazed at the Tok'ra. "That's it, isn't it? You need a ship to defend yourself."

"That is correct, Doctor Jackson." Jolinar nodded.

Daniel nodded, flinching inwardly as he realized she'd switched back to calling him doctor as she turned to Dan.

"Dan-yel can recall some details of the ship."

Making a face, Dan nodded. "I was taken there...a few times. Counted most of the directions and steps." He didn't elaborate, but John stiffened, turning sharply to his brother. Sensing John's alarm, hearing clothing rustling abruptly, Dan shook his head. "Long time ago and old history, John."

Clenching his jaw, John nodded and decided glaring at his folder was just as productive.

Jack cleared his throat. He turned to Hammond, pushing the uneasy feeling from Dan's words down to his belly where it belonged and pointed to the hologram. "We could distribute maps like this to our teams and split up. Maybe a two-way tactic? One goes for Ra's ship, the other for ground support and contacting the Asgards?"

Hammond nodded. "It sounds agreeable. General Maybourne?"

The other general grunted. "Sorry, but I'm still trying to figure out the 'getting a Stargate to get back to Earth' part."

The entire room sobered.

"Last time," Daniel murmured, "we went through the mirror into the SGC. Couldn't we do the same here?"

Hansen darted a glance over to General Hammond. "I'd heard about that."

"Can't be done." Shaking her head, Sam sighed. "The reason why my doppelganger was able to reach us before was because she had a mirror, and we had one as well. Even if, say, we were to go back to P3R-233 in your reality and get the mirror. There is no mirror in Cheyenne to act as a receiver." She spanned her hand apart. "You need two ends, one to send and one to receive in order for this to work."

"But what about the portal on the planet we just came from?" Dan argued. "We didn't need two separate devices."

Sam shook her head again. "That is like a direct link, both sides of the coin are regarded as individual devices. Open or closed on one side controls the entire device, but if one of the side's controls was broken, we can't return. It's a stationary device, sort of like a two-way mirror. All it does is show your own reflection until you activate it."

"In other words, no Stargate for us to use to get home," Hansen interrupted.

Daniel frowned. "Wait, we know there are only two Stargates on your planet now that respond to the seven chevrons for Earth. Am I correct?"

"One in Cheyenne and one that was in our base before we blew it." Hansen scrutinized Daniel. "What are you thinking?"

"How did they move your people off the planet if those were the only two Stargates?" Daniel wanted to know.

Jolinar pointed upward to demonstrate. "They used their orbiting depot ships' Stargates behind your planet's moon. They have their own seven symbols and can teleport them up. The ships conceal behind the dark shadows of the moon to avoid attack should the people of Tau'ri manage to gain control of one of their depots on the surface." She saddened, head forward as her voice grew softer. "It was a wasted concern, though. None have been able to gain control. We only managed to destroy or severely damage them but at a terrible cost."

Tapping his pen on his chin, Daniel mused out loud, eyes distant. "So...these ships are too far away for anyone on the surface to defend them anyway, yet close enough for teleporting?"

Jack grinned, catching what Daniel was saying. "So why don't we use those ships?"

Nodding quickly, Daniel chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully. "When I was on Apophis' ship after I was revived, I used the gate there to dial elsewhere before getting home." He didn't catch Jack's scowl at the memory of their first suicide mission. "If we can get on those ships, we can get closer to Earth, maybe orbit and use that Stargate to punch in the symbols for the Asgards."

Sam shook her head. "Daniel, our naquada reactor can only be connected to an electrical source. When it was first created," she gave Jack a sideways glance, "it was made to adapt to electrical current. I wouldn't know how to use it on a pure naquada power core. We might end up blowing ourselves up before we could dial the first symbol."

"Well, that would suck," Jack commented.

"You think?" Dan muttered. Jack started. "So we need those ships to beam us back down to the base and use that Stargate for your alien guys." He sighed, pinching the spot on the bridge of his nose, smiling briefly as John rubbed his back. When Dan nodded, John reluctantly pulled away.

Hansen arched an eyebrow. "I was thinking we could use their Stargates to leapfrog home, but I couldn't figure out how we could sneak onto one of their mining planets and use their Stargate to travel to those." She shook her head. "Only the Jaffa or the system lords themselves use those Stargates."

"Well, we could have some of our men pose as Jaffa. Find a Goa'uld occupied planet and pose as guards with new prisoners," Carter pointed out. "We have some of the armor from the guards who came over to our reality."

"What?" Hansen stiffened in her seat. She whipped her head to John.

John fidgeted under her glare. "I didn't invite them, Commander. They followed us."

"They're dead, Commander Hansen," Hammond reassured her. "But their armor is relatively intact save for a few sections. But they can be repaired and reused."

Jolinar shook her head. "It may not work. The guards only speak Goa'uld. Ra did not want them too exposed to the Tau'ri and perhaps sympathize with their plight, thus banning the knowledge of all Tau'ri languages."

"Uh...I speak Goa'uld," Daniel raised his hand, raising his eyebrows.

"As do I," Teal'c spoke up as well.

Jack grinned. "That's two. Three if we count you, Jolinar."

"Make that four."

Hansen turned sharply to Dan, who raised his hand, waving it weakly.

Dan coughed, speaking softly. "I can be very...colorful with the Goa'uld language. You wouldn't believe the stuff you pick up when they think you're too out of it to hear them talking."

"Dan." John leaned towards his brother.

"I'm not sitting here doing nothing, John." Dan lifted his chin stubbornly.

The captain was fully aware of everyone's eyes on him. Under the table, he bunched his fists. "No...What I wanted to say was..." He swallowed. "You're forgetting about me." He forced himself to look away from his brother, gulp down the protests he wanted to say and look at Jack.

"Make that five, Colonel."

"Thank you," Dan whispered low enough for only John to hear.

John didn't respond. He clenched his teeth before relaxing them to continue. "I've transported slaves before. We could act as if we're arriving with slaves for their mines. The ships get them often. We get in their ship and take it over. Use that to fly back home and then use the Stargate to beam down to Cheyenne."

Sam jumped in, nodding eagerly with a gleam in her eyes. "It could work. Under that guise, no one would question their coming and going. With the Stargate in Cheyenne, we could dial up the Asgard symbols and ask for their help."

The corner of her mouth twitching, Hansen made a face. "We need a diversion outside of Cheyenne while we're inside. We'll get Colburn's men to do that."

John nodded. "We can drop them off nearby and have them create a scene to draw the Jaffa out."

"I think we're forgetting something," Maybourne interrupted. "Does anyone know how to fly one of those things? I mean, a ship, even a cargo ship is built a little differently than a death glider. And none of my men were able to get close enough to a death glider to figure them out. We've only seen them before they shot us to hell." He turned to John on his right. "Captain?"

John shook his head, brow furrowing. "No, sir. I was a high ranking Overseer for mines. Not allowed anywhere near armory." His eyes darkened. "I was still a Tau'ri to them. They didn't want me tempted to rebel by teaching me their weaponry."

Crossing his arms in front of him, Maybourne directed his gaze to the rest of the room. "Anyone here?"

Everyone in the room shifted in their seats.

Jolinar bit her lower lip. "Selmac is familiar with most Goa'uld aircraft."

"Yeah, but Selmac or Jacob isn't here, are they?" John pointed out.

Darting a glance over to the dark expression on Hansen's face, Jolinar sadly nodded.

Teal'c stared across to Jack. "If the ship contains Goa'uld, I may be able to decipher it."

"Okay, so there's your pilot," Jack waved towards Teal'c. "So we got the maps, the key, where to go, how to get there, and what else?"

"Ra." Dan's voice was tight as he forced out the name.

Daniel mutely swallowed.

After giving a quick concerned glance to Dan, Hansen turned to Jack. "These Asgards you're talking about. What would they do exactly?"

Jack shrugged. "Last time, they beamed Apophis and some of his men out of the base. Everyone else picked up their skirts and ran."

"They didn't kill them," Sam added. "Just took them off the planet."

"That won't do at all." Shaking his head, Maybourne gestured around the room. "Ra could come back any time."

Hansen pointed to the table with an angry jab. "And we have to get on that ship and get those maps. Unless the Asgards can guarantee they'll be staying around to watch our backs, we need a ship guarding our world. Too many system lords out there know where we are to ignore us."

"So what do you want to do? Kill him?" Jack asked dryly. "Hold a war crimes trial?"

"Who said anything about a trial?" Hansen shot back.

Hammond cleared his throat again. "I think our main concern should be how we are going to reach your home planet first before we decide on how we are going to deal with Ra. Although, the President does agree that Ra is a threat to both our realities."

"While you contact the Asgards, we could go into Ra's complex and take the maps," Daniel suggested.

Hansen shrugged, calming.

Jack nodded, shooting Daniel a grateful look. "Daniel's right. We could do that, but we gotta get there first."

"We'll get Colburn to wait for us at a designated site where we can meet. Maybe a mining camp at Seba, General?" Hansen turned to her CO.

Maybourne gave it some thought, scratching his chin. "Sounds good. Closest to our planet." He looked over to the standing soldiers, zeroing in on the communications officer. "Simmons. Feel up to a reconn mission through the portal?"

"S-sir?" Simmons stammered.

Hansen scribbled hastily on a sheet of paper her folder had. She divided up the sheet and passed one down to Daniel, one to Maybourne and folded the other up, tossing it over to Simmons. The communications soldier fumbled, barely catching the paper.

"Those are the symbols," she told them. "Simmons, I'll send Kawalsky's team with you as escort. You get over there, open the Stargate and contact Colburn. Tell him what we decided and tell him what the rendezvous symbols are."

Simmons stared at the paper in his hands and swallowed. "Yes, sir."

Hammond looked around the room. "Well, then. Colonel O'Neill, think you and Commander Hansen can come up with a roster?"

Jack glared at Hansen before answering. "I think so, sir."

"Good. Doctor Jackson, Doctor O'Neill. Perhaps you two and Jolinar can train a few other soldiers in some general Goa'uld terms to use."

Daniel stared at Jolinar.

"Doctor Jackson?"

Stirring out of his thoughts, Daniel nodded. "Yes, sir."

Maybourne looked around the room as well. "Okay. Captain O'Neill, you and Teal'c get the armor you need. Make sure they're passable. Siler?"

Both engineers chorused. "Sir?"

Sighing, Maybourne waved listlessly at them both. "The one from my reality. Learn what you can about the reactor, how to dial up those Asgard symbols. I want you to be able to do this in your sleep."

"SG-1, I'm giving you head team status for this mission," Hammond added. "Be prepared to depart tomorrow morning."

Jack and the others murmured an agreement. They all stilled, staring expectantly at Hammond and Maybourne.

The generals looked at each other, arching their eyebrows.

"Uh...it's your base. You might want to say it instead of me," suggested Maybourne with a small quirk of his mouth.

Hammond mentally sighed. "Dismissed."

The room emptied so fast, people driven with a goal, a purpose, that it felt like Hammond only blinked, and suddenly he was left with only Maybourne in the room.

"Nice," Maybourne drawled. "You have got to teach me that, General Hammond."

Hammond bit back a smile, shaking his head. "Call me George."

Maybourne chuckled. "Well then. Call me Harry."

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

"Kray?" Anderson repeated with his southern drawl.

"No!" Dan groaned, dropping his head to his arms. "Kree! It's kree, for crying out loud!"

Daniel exchanged a look with Major Ferretti. The major sighed.

"Terry, never mind. You're probably too tall to fit the armor anyway." Ferretti wearily waved his man off.

"Sorry, sir," Anderson apologized sincerely. "Hell, I still think it's pronounced kray."

Dan thumped a frustrated fist on the table. "Kree! The Goa'ulds won't believe one of their Jaffas comes from Georgia!"

Anderson winced, giving Daniel a disbelieving look before turning back to Dan. Muttering about it being "Way too weird", the sergeant left Daniel's office.

Jolinar placed a hand on Dan's shoulder. "Perhaps you need rest, Dan-yel?"

"No," came the muffled reply. "Just pissed off as hell that no one here can do a decent Egyptian accent. We're wasting time needlessly teaching people to say hello!" Dan raised his head, brow furrowing. "You said this project's been going on for over three years. Why the hell hasn't anyone learned to speak the tongue of the enemy? Does the term 'know thy enemy' mean anything to you? What the hell have you been doing all this time?"

Speechless, Daniel clamped his mouth shut, seeing the sympathetic looks Ferretti and Jolinar were giving him. He looked away as Jolinar rubbed Dan's back, swallowing as he heard her murmur reassurances to his double, her concern open on her tanned face. Dan sat there, hunched over, sighing heavily.

Everyone jumped as alarms suddenly rang out as Kawalsky's team and Simmons departed through the Stargate as scheduled.

"God damn it!" Dan's arm lashed out, the other clamped over his ear. In one swift motion, he smacked hard against a stack of books, sending them flying towards Daniel and Ferretti. The major barely had time to jump back. Daniel winced as one or two books struck him. He could have avoided them easily, but seeing Dan act out in such anger had shocked him.

"Are you okay?" Reaching out a hand to Daniel, Jolinar looked at him inquiringly. Her other hand though was still on Dan's back.

"Fine," Daniel croaked. He felt his eyes burn and wondered if his vision was retreating to the way it'd been before. He wished it would. Daniel took a step back. "I'd better go see if Jack has the roster done. Maybe we can divide up each team with one speaker and..." He moistened his lips. He kept telling himself don't think, but now his emotions were running rampant without logic and reasoning reining them in. Jolinar, with her hair tied back, had Sha're's concerned expression shining out of her. But he knew it wasn't directed at him completely. Because she wasn't Sha're. She wasn't his wife.

Daniel had already lost his.

Dan groaned, raising his head, massaging his forehead.

"Dan-yel?" Turning her head back to Dan, Jolinar's concern deepened visibly.

And Daniel took that moment to escape.

When Jolinar returned her gaze to where Daniel had been standing, her eyes widened when all she saw was Ferretti looking very uncomfortable.

"Where is Dan-yel Jackson?" she inquired.

"Uh..." Ferretti scratched his head. "He went to look for Colonel O'Neill. Look, why don't we call the next person and see if we can—"

"He looked ill at ease with me," observed Jolinar.

Ferretti fidgeted. "Look, it ain't you. It's just that you and...well..." He sighed. "You look like his wife, okay?"

Jolinar frowned, but Dan was the one who spoke.

"Jolinar looks like his wife?" Tilting his head, Dan was puzzled. "He said his wife died."

"Uh...yeah. Not too long ago."

"He said I was Sha're," Jolinar murmured. "When we first arrived here, he called me Sha're."

Dan nodded absently. "That's your host name, Jol. I know."

"But I never told him my host's name when we first met."

Mouth forming an O, Dan paused. "You mean?"

Jolinar sighed out loud. "Is my assumption correct, Major Ferretti?"

The soldier tugged at his collars, looking very uncomfortable. He looked at her sideways, pretending to glance down the hallway. "Aw...look, you didn't hear it from me."

Frowning, Dan shook his head. "Shit, well if that doesn't just top the cake." He sighed, hunched over at the desk. "I guess this hasn't been a very happy trip down memory lane for him." He rubbed his chest ruefully.

"Shall I get the doctor, Dan-yel?"

Dan sat up and took a deep breath, scrunching his face as he coughed. "No. I'm fine now. Let's just try and get someone to learn enough Goa'uld in case they are questioned, okay?"

"Very well." Jolinar looked at Ferretti with interest. "Major Ferretti, how is your aptitude for foreign languages?"

"Eh?"

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Jack peered over his clipboard, staring at the intense concentration that furrowed Hansen's brow, the pen bobbing up and down as she nibbled on its end. Seated in the meeting room, the Stargate just outside the embarkation room, Jack couldn't help but wonder what made the commander tick.

"You're wasting time, Colonel." Hansen looked up, narrowing her eyes.

Blinking, he realized his study hadn't gone unnoticed. He rolled his eyes. "Look, General Hammond said two teams from us. I would love to send a whole section for you, but we've got nine other teams out there that we can't call back for this mission, and that's how many bracelets we have with us to pass out."

"Mission," the commander repeated in a tight voice.

Jack threw up his hands. "Look! I didn't mean it that way. If this was just a _mission,_" he wiggled his fingers in the air, framing the last word, "Daniel and I wouldn't have been having tea with Mr. and Mrs. Goa'uld-of-the-Week over there!"

Chewing on her lip, Hansen shrugged before looking down at her roster. "No. I guess you're right."

Jack blinked again. "What did you say?"

Ignoring him, Hansen pointed to her clipboard. "I've got twenty-six soldiers here, but from what your medics say, four are too critical to risk moving. That's who they recommended we give those bracelets to."

Jack waved his hand. "What did you say?" he repeated incredulously.

Hansen looked up, her eyes saying "Are you kidding me?" With unusual patience, she repeated, "I've got twenty-six soldiers—"

"No, no. What you said before that."

"What? About the mission?"

Jack gave her an exasperated look. "After that!"

Hansen gritted her teeth. "Okay, you were right. Satisfied?"

Jack grinned broadly. "Quite." He peered down at his papers, hearing Hansen growl under her breath. "I'm thinking of adding Ferretti's team to mine. They've got good combat experience, which is what you need. Covert ops and that sort of stuff. And Ferretti was on the Abydos mission so he has a good inkling of Ra and what he's capable of."

"Never underestimate the enemy."

O'Neill looked up. Hansen gazed back at him with disapproval.

"Alternate realities aside, didn't they teach you that in school? Never underestimate the enemy?"

Jack grunted, his gaze back on his papers again. _Yeah, but they also taught me to be quick to make a friend 'cause you never know when you need one._

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

Shit. Did he say that out loud? Jack looked up. "All I'm saying is that this whole process will go a whole lot easier if you weren't being so...so..."

Hansen narrowed her eyes. "Bitchy?"

Jack pointed his pen at her. "Now I didn't say that!" He paused, nodding as he found the word. "Difficult. I was going to say difficult."

Staring at him, Hansen didn't say anything. Her pen twirled around her fingers as she sat there. Finally, she grunted as if the conversation was a waste of time as well and went back to her work. "Kawalsky, Captain Ferretti and Simmons should be getting ready to cross the portal soon." She scribbled something down. "Your team set up there should be sufficient to keep an eye out for any of Jermak's or Hathor's men."

"Thanks," Jack muttered. "We're very good at being sufficient."

"Hey."

Jack raised his eyes. Hansen looked at him with a strange twist of her mouth, trying to smile. Trying. It looked painful, and her lips snapped back to the grim line again.

"I know I'm not very _personable_."

"Really?" Jack drawled. "I didn't notice."

Hansen shot him a glare. "You have to understand something from my point of view." She lifted her papers. "I can't screw up. Ever. To you, one mistake may mean a few scrapes and cuts. One mistake in my reality and it could cost me a good team, half a dozen kids too young to have been in the military had it not been for the fact we were so god damn desperate. One mistake could mean a battle or the war." She lowered her hand, the lines around her mouth suddenly making her look old, tired, bone weary. "I have to check myself every minute, then double check myself to make sure I didn't forget anything. I don't have time to be...friendly."

"Your men look up to you and to those generals," he pointed out. "Have you seen the difference?"

Hansen gave him a frown, indicating she hadn't.

"Maybourne in my reality is such a stiff, covert son of a bitch you need a hydrogen bomb to shed any light on the shadow he lurks in. But your version—" Jack waved towards her. "Men will follow him. They have faith in him. They'll walk through fire for him." He smiled sadly. "And all it takes is a few smiles and a few jokes every now and then. You gotta show them you're human. Good men can't follow cold rock. Not much faith can be put into rocks, Commander."

"I'm not always like this," she said with a sigh. "I just can't remember how to be that way again."

"Shouldn't be too hard. I mean, it's like riding a bicycle."

"Colonel, I torched my bicycle when I was eight. That's the wrong example to give me."

Jack waved his arms wide. "See? You're joking already."

Hansen shook her head. "Thank you for that...whatever that was. I'm sure you're a wonderful leader to your team, a regular old, grumpy teddy bear—"

"Hey," protested Jack.

Hansen paused.

"I'm not old." He ruefully ran his hand through graying hair. "I got this all from one blue-eyed, doesn't-know-when-to-duck archeologist."

Hansen smiled again, this time genuine. "I can believe that."

"Much better." Jack smiled back before clearing his throat; back to business. Hansen's smile lingered, realizing O'Neill wasn't trying to crow how right he was or anything. Jack peered down at his papers. "Now, General Hammond said he could spare maybe fifty rifles and three rovers of supplies. Supply has surplus on Kevlar and helmets we can outfit your guys with..."

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Kawalsky glared at the portal; his hands resting on his rifle tightened over its frame. He glanced over to Ferretti and Simmons.

"What do you think, Louis?" Kawalsky asked the captain, nodding towards the mirror. "You wanna go first?"

Louis growled. "Nah. Age before beauty, man."

"Like I said, you wanna go first?" Kawalsky smirked. He looked over his shoulder at the team of SGC soldiers guarding the DHD. Three Marines, looking at Kawalsky with mild amazement, stood at attention by the device. "Uh..." He pointed to one of the soldiers.

"Lieutenant Cowley, sir!"

Both Kawalsky and Ferretti winced. Kawalsky gave the soldier a withering glare. "Listen, I'm glad there's respect for rank and everything no matter what reality we're from, but you can ease back on the shouting to make sure I hear you stuff."

"Yes, sir!"

Kawalsky rolled his eyes, muttering, "I give up." He gave the DHD a wary look. "You know how to dial this?"

"Yes, sir!"

Ferretti snickered, but Simmons said nothing as he looked at the wall with apprehension.

Shaking his head, Kawalsky gestured towards it. "I'm sure you heard your orders. We need to get through and dial up our buddies to give them our plans. Can you—"

Cowley hopped onto the platform. The wall shimmered once, then revealed the reflection of the other reality.

"Ask and you shall receive," Ferretti drawled.

"Shut up," muttered Kawalsky. He gave Simmons a glance, noting the sweaty pallor. "Kid? You okay? You're looking a little green around the gills."

Simmons shrugged, his hands slipping into his pockets.

Giving Ferretti a look, the other captain shrugging in response, Kawalsky thought nothing of it. He took a deep breath. "Here goes," he muttered and walked to the wall.

The wall abruptly vanished, and Kawalsky skidded to a halt, hand up to his helmet, cursing loudly.

"I hate it when it does that!"

Ferretti gave him a grunt. "Me too." He followed after Kawalsky, Simmons trailing behind him. Right after Simmons went through, the wall solidified once more behind the young soldier. But Simmons didn't give it a glance as he walked over to the DHD and punched the symbols.

Standing by the statues, Kawalsky leaned to Ferretti. "Yo, do you think Graham is acting a bit...odd?" He nodded towards the skittish behavior Simmons was sporting, hopping in place on top of the platform, muttering to himself.

Giving Kawalsky a disbelieving look, Louis snorted. "Charlie, he's always odd. Come on, he's been weird ever since he escaped from Jermak's ship. Remember? Kid was a bundle of nerves for the next few months. We all get shaky long enough."

Nodding absently, Kawalsky watched Simmons sigh, frustrated, stopping his dialing.

"What's the matter, Graham?"

"Got the symbols mixed up." Running a hand through unruly brown hair, Simmons was vibrating like a live wire.

Frowning, Kawalsky looked over to the portal where the three Marines watched them intently, one still standing on the DHD platform. He waved to them, showing it was all clear and the other soldiers relaxed. They stepped off, the mirror wavering as they did.

"Maybe I should tell them to stay on," Kawalsky muttered, staring back at his own reflection. He didn't like the feeling of no one watching their six. "Hang on, kid. I'm gonna tell them to get back on. I'd rather we leave this thing open."

"Don't bother."

Kawalsky froze, just as he heard a whine before Ferretti grunted. Something heavy fell to the floor, and he spun around to see his friend on the ground, a blue bolt of what looked like electricity fading from the soldier's body. His rifle shot up, waving around for the Jaffa who'd attacked when he saw Graham.

And the zat he was pointing at him.

"What the hell?" Kawalsky exploded.

Simmons looked at him with regret. "I'm sorry, sir. I can't help you. You'll only die."

"Kid, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Saving your lives," Simmons said sadly and fired before Kawalsky could pull the trigger. A blue bolt sailed across, striking the captain. Kawalsky groaned once, twitching under its assault before he dropped without another sound to the ground.

Simmons looked down at the two with regret. He winced, clenching his hands as they shook.

"Not yet. Not yet," he murmured. "Hang in there, give them the tablets, make the damn deal, then you'll go back to it. But not yet."

His hands still shook, but he gritted his teeth and went over to Ferretti. With a soft grunt, Simmons pulled the soldier behind a cluster of statues, out of view. He went over to Kawalsky, doing the same, pausing when he had both of them behind the statues. He crouched down to the unconscious men and spoke in a low tone.

"She loves me," he murmured. "She saved me when I was caught by Jermak. Can't you understand?" Simmons sighed. "I have to go back to her and to it. I'll die without it." He brightened. "But don't worry...she wants me to be her pharaoh after Ra dies. She told me so. And when I am, I'll make sure she doesn't harm any of you." He bowed his head. "I tried to get them the tablets. I swear, I never told them about the base. I thought the tablets would be enough, but Jermak found you anyway. She told me herself she wouldn't harm you. If only you'd join her to destroy Ra." Simmons rose to his feet. He looked at the DHD, then back at the two soldiers. "I love her, and she loves me. She wouldn't lie to me."

Simmons walked over to the DHD and punched the seven symbols he knew by heart.

The Stargate burst into life, and he smiled, eyes lighting up as he went over to it, pulling out a communications globe. He lovingly brushed his hand over the hand-sized marble, and it glowed before the mists inside shaped into the face he loved.

Hathor.

Her eyes glowed at the sight of him. "Beloved, we were so concerned. Jermak discovered your base and attacked before we could stop him. We were concerned for your safety."

Simmons stroked the surface, over her face. "I'm okay."

"Thank fate." Hathor paused. "What of the rebels? The resistance? Are they well?"

He smiled. "They are. We escaped back to the planet where Jermak captured the _re'klya_."

She frowned in the globe. "But we were told there was no trace of you."

Simmons smiled. "We found another place, one where Ra is no longer alive. One we can rule together and escape this war."

Looking at him curiously through the globe, Hathor paused. Then, she smiled.

"Beloved...tell us."


	40. Chapter 39

**CHAPTER THIRTY NINE**

Jack frowned as he looked up from the desk. Hansen was long gone to check on her men in the infirmary, and the briefing room became quiet without the companion rustling of paper. So when he heard the shuffle of a shoe, it was loud enough to hear. He eyed the doorway, at the shadow and knew. Somehow, the hair on the back of his neck tingled, and he just knew.

"Daniel?"

Another shuffle and Daniel emerged from the shadows, smiling sheepishly. "How did you know?"

Jack frowned, ignoring the question. "Done already with your end?"

A guilty look swept over Daniel's face. "Um, they're handling it. I wanted to see if you'd finished with the roster yet... see which person should go where. We have maybe five with only a probable one other who can learn Goa'uld fast enough and—"

"Daniel, sit."

Blinking, Daniel sat down.

Jack sighed, studying the slouched shoulders on his friend. "Harder than you thought to just sit there and watch her, huh?"

Daniel's eyes looked away as he swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. "She just looks so much like her, Jack."

His brow straightening and his eyes softening with understanding, Jack nodded as he murmured, "I know, buddy. I know."

"And she acts like if she doesn't know me."

Jack chewed on his pen, his papers forgotten. "Well, technically, she doesn't. She knows Dan, but you? In her reality, you're not her—"

"Her husband. I know," Daniel interrupted. He leaned into the chair. "And that bothers me a lot."

"It shouldn't, you know."

Daniel drew his hands up and covered his face, sighing heavily into them before pulling them away from his tired expression. "I know, I know! I keep telling myself. Don't think about it. Just get the job done, but..."

"You know," Jack said abruptly, "when I first saw Kawalsky, not on this mission, but the time he came over with Carter's twin, he gave me the creeps."

"What?" Daniel sat up, frowning. "But he was your friend."

"Was," Jack reminded him. "_Was_ is the operative word here. Kawalsky died in our reality. Suddenly there he was walking around like he wasn't."

"I guess that must have bothered you a lot."

Jack tilted his head back, thinking. "At first, it did. But you know what?"

Daniel looked at Jack curiously. "What?"

Smiling crookedly, twirling his pen, Jack shrugged. "I was just glad he was alive."

Daniel stared at Jack.

"He's not really my friend...well...apparently, we're friends in every reality so far, but he still wasn't the friend I knew." Jack's eyes darkened with the memory. He saw Daniel was going to protest, defend Jack's actions and hurried to add, "I know it was what he would have wanted, Daniel. But that Kawalsky and the one who walked through that mirror were not the same. I was just glad he was alive...in any reality." The colonel studied Daniel carefully. "Do you understand what I am trying to say?"

Slowly, Daniel nodded. "I think so."

"Ah, ah!" Jack tapped Daniel lightly on the forehead. "I said no thinking, remember?"

Daniel sighed, rubbing his eyes as he smiled ruefully.

Jack watched his friend for a moment before clearing his throat. "Hey...how're your eyes?"

Pausing, Daniel blinked. "They're better. A lot better now, in fact." He lowered his gaze, his voice dropping. "Now I can see everything all too clearly."

Daniel peered down at the table sadly. "When this is all over, maybe it'll finally hit me. Maybe it won't. It's just that seeing her...even though I'm glad she's alive somewhere, it only reminds me more of how she isn't in this reality with me."

"I know, buddy."

Daniel raised his head, his lips pressed together. "But that's for later, right? Can't think about it now."

O'Neill nodded, heartened to see a determined glint back in Daniel's eyes. Knew it was there somewhere. "Beat the bad guys and think it over later over beer."

The archeologist made a face. "The think part I can handle. I don't know about the beer."

"What? It's not like you never had a beer before!"

"True, but honestly, you have the same type in your fridge every time I'm there." Daniel grinned wanly. "It's getting a bit repetitious."

"Well, go pick me up something different before you swing by!"

"Me? I wouldn't know what to get!"

"So what ya complaining about? At least you got the beer!" Jack snorted, exasperated as he fell back against his seat.

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Don't remind me." He smiled though, conveying his gratitude. "I'm going to see if they're there yet or still need help."

Jack nodded, studying the archeologist for a moment. "Get some rest after that, will ya? You still look like shit."

Sighing, Daniel gave him a disbelieving look. "We're leaving in the morning, Jack."

"We still have two and a half days before Mister Goa'uld-with-a-Problem comes prancing back to Earth. I'd rather have everyone alert and up with the sun ready to go, than asleep at the ramp. I—What?" Jack stopped at the strange look that came over Daniel's face. "What?"

"W-what did you say?" Daniel whispered. He could feel his heart pounding. A memory, something that sprang up on its own was shrieking in the back of his mind.

Jack arched his eyebrow. "I said we've only got two and a half days left to—" He stopped once more when Daniel winced. "What's wrong?" Daniel shook his head, hissing abruptly, hand up to his forehead. Jack frowned. "That's it. Come on." He got up, hooking an arm under Daniel's to haul him up. "We'd better get you to Doc's."

"No...wait..." Daniel slipped his arm away, squinting, frowning as he stared out into nothing. "Something..."

Crouching to peer at Daniel's face, Jack winced at the lines of pain etched at the corners of the desperate eyes. "Does this have something to do with what you were trying to remember from the ship?"

Daniel mutely nodded.

Looking at the archeologist carefully, Jack waited, watching as Daniel massaged his temples wearily, breathing in and out, each intake a harsh sound in the room.

_"...told us where our Beloved was hidden...we would reward...if he gives us the base."_

Daniel could hear Jermak's arrogant voice, dripping with platitudes for Hathor. He could still feel her hands on his back, refusing to leave. He felt sick to the stomach.

_"He has not been...reliable...often...refused to tell you anything, my queen."_

_"...told us where our Beloved was hidden... the Tau'ri...we would reward...if he gives us the base."_

He could hear them, at the edge of his mind, right over the brink, teetering, threatening to fall back into the dark haze that surrounded him with painful memories. Daniel's hands curled like claws above his head as he bowed over the desk.

"Easy, big guy. Don't force it if it's not coming."

But he had to. Didn't Jack understand? With every hour they pushed to return to fight Ra, something in the back of Daniel's head had been screaming for his attention. Something he had been ignoring ever since he saw Sha're...no...Jolinar. Like a lovelorn schoolboy, he had been gazing at her, ignoring his aches and pains, only scoring a newly sealed wound that resided in his heart. But now, as he knew his wife would never return...in any form, the small voices were screaming for his attention again.

_"...told us where our Beloved was hidden... the Tau'ri...we would reward...if he gives us the base."_

Bile rose in his throat as bits of words returned with the sensation of being touched without his permission, the vile feeling of being helpless, not under control, racked with pain that took not just his body but also his mind. Everything he'd thought bearable before returned in full color and sound to remind him how bad it'd really been.

Jack rubbed Daniel's hunched back, concern making him look towards the doorway more and more as small pained sounds increasingly emanated from the archeologist. Jack was tempted to shout for some assistance but was worried the noise would only send Daniel careening down into whatever memories had their hold on him. The recollection of Daniel screaming in agony, writhing under pain and memories back on the sub was still too fresh in Jack's mind for the colonel to dare try.

"Deep breaths, Daniel," he murmured instead, feeling as useful as a fifth leg on a chair. He sat there, not realizing he was swaying on his heels in beat with Daniel's own rocking.

Daniel mentally screamed at his body to stop feeling and remember. He had to remember. Pain? What was pain, really? He knew nothing of pain compared to his counterpart. He felt shame washing over him in place of remembered aches. That's it. He had to remember what he went through wasn't as bad. Not as bad for him as it was for another.

_"He has not been...reliable...often he refused to tell you anything, my queen."_

_Come on, come on_, he thought to himself, arms automatically going around himself as he squeezed, hoping the act would gather his thoughts, make his tenuous control more exact and reel back the damning tendrils of memory.

_"He told us where our Beloved was hidden with the Tau'ri. For which we told him we would reward...if he gives us the base."_

The base.

Daniel's head shot up with a soft gasp, his eyes focusing on a grim faced, brow furrowed, extremely worried looking colonel who was barely inches from his nose.

"Hey. What's going on? You remembering something?" Jack dropped a hand on Daniel's knee, giving it a shaking to catch Daniel's attention. The half-dazed gaze, seeing nothing, gave him a bad feeling in his gut. "Daniel?" He waved his hand in front of Daniel, a little voice screaming inside that Daniel was blind again while the logical half was trying to tell him he wasn't.

To Jack's relief, Daniel's pupils expanded, losing the terrifying pinprick look, and Daniel seemed to have returned from whatever hell he'd been in. "J-jack?"

Jack sighed out loud. "Yeah. Had me going there, Daniel."

"The spy..."

Jack tensed. "Spy?"

"Remember how you were talking before about a spy? Back in Machello's place?"

"Yeah, but you said it was the Stargate that got them discovered not a spy."

Daniel nodded weakly. "I know. I know I said that, but...there _is_ a spy."

Staring at the archeologist, Jack carefully asked, "What makes you so sure?"

Daniel lowered his eyes, staring, arms still wrapped around himself as he fought to stay calm, memories threatening to drown him with the reminders of the pain. "Back on the ship," he murmured, staring at a pitcher of water as if from afar. "I came to at some point after they...you know..." He uncurled and waved towards his head.

Clenching his jaw, Jack nodded. "Go on."

"Heard H...heard her talking with Jermak about a spy..." Daniel rubbed circles around his healing wounds. Jack was tempted to slap his hands down, not liking the physical reminder.

_"He told us where our Beloved was hidden with the Tau'ri."_

Daniel scrubbed his face with a quiet swipe of his hands. "They said something about telling where Dan was...I don't know..."

"My double said something about that," Jack muttered, remembering John's muffled voice as they'd waited outside the infirmary just a few days ago. "Said Dan was hidden somewhere, but somehow he was found out."

"Now, we know why..." Looking back at Jack, Daniel was grim. "And Jack...there's more...I think there's something more...Something important…" He lowered his head, his left foot stomping his frustration. "God, why isn't it coming to me?" Daniel's hands contorted to claws once more, threatening to pull his own hair out.

Leaning closer, Jack studied his friend. The dark circles under the archeologist's eyes told him this wasn't easy. "What? What is it you think you see?"

_"He will not tell you..."_

_"...Be ready for me..."_

_"...Che mar, he comes..."_

Daniel moaned softly. Alarmed, Jack gripped his knee once more. "I don't know. I can hear it...some of it...but...argh!" He thumped a fist on the table. "There must be something I can do to..." He stopped, lowering his head. Jack sat there, watching his friend, keeping an ear out for his breathing just in case. Daniel slowly raised his eyes. "Jack...do you remember when you guys thought I was dead?"

"Which time?" Jack weakly joked. "There were so many."

Waving his hand, annoyed despite knowing Jack's attempt at humor was to alleviate the anxiety that hung in the room, Daniel hurried on, his words picking up speed. "When Nem—"

"Alright! Alright! I remember!" Jack sat down on a chair with a scowl. "What of it?"

"Sam said you used hypnosis to bring out the memories to find out I wasn't dead, only captured."

_"We left him behind!" Carter cried, coming out of the induced trance with startled jerking of her body. Distress colored her eyes to a translucent blue as her mouth crumbled in a curve of alarm. "We left him behind!"_

_Jack felt her lunging for him, the need for reassurance from the usually self-reliable captain a shock, but he responded by opening his arms. As he grabbed her, patting her back, his eyes narrowed. _

_They'd left Daniel behind._

_"We're going back," he breathed and felt her nod against his shoulder. "We're going back," he repeated now as a vow to himself._

_He wouldn't come back this time without him._

Jack's left eyebrow twitched. "You want them to do the mind hocus pocus on you?"

Daniel didn't look too happy about the idea himself. "Do we have a choice?" He chuckled, strained. "Just don't have them make me cluck like a chicken or anything, okay?"

Jack grinned, although it appeared forced. "No problem." He looked at Daniel seriously. "You're sure about the spy thing?"

Nodding, Daniel didn't speak.

"You know this means this guy could now be wandering around our base?"

Daniel swallowed and nodded again.

Sighing, Jack got up. "Come on. Let's go find Doc."

Daniel hesitated, but he got up shakily. Jack took one look at him, gave him a quick pat on the back, and the two men left the briefing room, not even bothering to gather their papers or shut the lights behind them.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Standing outside the lab, Hansen scowled. She came back to a scattered briefing room, no colonel in sight, only that damn liaison Davis telling her that something had come up, and it would be better if she waited outside the labs for Colonel O'Neill and the others.

No explanation.

"God damn shit," she muttered, hearing the delicate footsteps coming towards her. She didn't need to turn her head. She already knew.

"Thought you would be with Dan, Tok'ra," she muttered to the newcomer.

If Jolinar was surprised that Hansen recognized her without turning, she didn't show it. "I heard something has happened to Dan-yel Jackson. I was concerned. Dan-yel O'Neill is with his brother. I felt they needed to spend more time with each other instead."

Hansen arched her eyebrow up high. "That was very considerate of you." Then, regretting the praise, she turned back to the closed doors.

"Who is inside?" Jolinar said softly, staring at the door as well.

"Colonel O'Neill, Doctor Jackson, and some shrink." The commander's lips curled back. "Oh, and that…_doctor_."

"Doctor Frasier?"

"Yeah," she grated out.

Jolinar studied her out of the corner of her eye. "She is not Hathor."

"No? But she sure does a pretty good resemblance of her."

"But it is not she."

Sammy looked over to her and grunted. "Figures you would try to defend her."

"If you are referring to the Goa'uld Hathor as my reason for her defense, then you are wrong."

The Tok'ra woman stared at the lab doors. "She, in our reality, is a victim."

"A victim, you say? Well, she looked pretty willing when she took all _her_ victims." Scowling at the shut door, Hansen thumped the wall she was leaning against. "She didn't look the least remorseful when she held that public _re'klya _ceremony a year ago!" The commander snarled in memory. "That witch had fifteen soldiers there in Washington and publicly put those things in there to scare possible rebel recruits away! Do you know how she looked when she did that to them? Damn it!" She spun on her heels to face Jolinar. "Some of those were barely old enough to vote before the invasion, and there they were, dying, screaming for their mothers! How can you possibly defend and paint such a monster as a victim?"

Jolinar's dark exotic eyes gazed back at her, old and sad. "Not all victims are visible to your eyes, Commander Hansen." She leaned her head back to the wall. "The hosts are in great pain and suffering, forced to watch what the Goa'uld does with their body, the horrors they witness and can do nothing about."

"And what about your host body, then?" Hansen nodded towards her, lips pressed to a thin line as she swept her gaze up and down. "Doesn't the same apply for your kind then, too?"

"As we have told you many times before, we only take from those who are willing to accept us."

Hansen grunted. "But your host is powerless to do anything."

"No. If they wish to emerge, we step aside and let them."

Sammy critically studied the Tok'ra before her. "I don't see that happening for you. With Selmac and my…father," she forced the last bit out, "I see them popping in and out. But you? All I see is…is you."

Jolinar nodded sadly. "She does not wish to come out."

"Huh," Hansen grunted. "Then it's only your word that your host body was a willing one."

"Yes."

Folding her hands across her chest, glaring at the shut door, Hansen felt the urge to scratch her scar once more. She waited in front of the lab, vaguely hearing muffled sounds coming from inside and nothing more. She waited, the seconds stretching as she thought of the world she'd left behind.

"Why do you hate us?"

Looking surprised, Hansen turned back towards Jolinar. "Why do you care?"

"We are allies," reminded Jolinar. "We must trust each other in order to win."

Hansen snorted. "Trust? A fine thing for you guys to say."

"We have been open with you and your allies. We have kept nothing from you."

"You've got that…that…thing inside you, and you ask me why I can hate you?"

"It is a Tok'ra, not a—"

"Not a Goa'uld. I know. I know." Hansen rolled her eyes. "You guys keep saying that." She waved a hand towards Jolinar. "Where? What possibly separates you from a Goa'uld?"

"I would not be standing here talking to you if I were a Goa'uld."

Hansen stopped.

"I would have struck you down for such bold words. I would not have seen you worthy to stand next to me. And I would have taken your body as a host."

"Who said anything about being a host for you?" Hansen snapped.

Jolinar smiled. "No one did. Especially you. Therefore I will not." She bowed her head slightly. "That is the difference between Goa'uld and Tok'ra."

Speechless, Sammy stared at her, a woman who by all appearances was the same age, but her eyes were centuries older.

"I can't stop hating you," Hansen blurted before she could stop herself. "What would I have left otherwise?" Regretting her outburst, she ran an angry hand through her short hair. "This is pointless. I'm going back to the briefing room and get the rosters done without him." She didn't say goodbye. Rather she stalked away, looking like she was more tempted to run instead.

Jolinar stared at her departing back. "Commander…if hating us or hating me allows you to fight on, then continue. If that is one way we can help you, then hate us."

Freezing in her tracks, Hansen didn't turn around. She stood there, back towards Jolinar. "What an odd thing to say."

Jolinar smiled. "It is what a Tok'ra would say, Commander Hansen."

Hansen grunted, still not turning around. She sighed though. "I guess I'll have to get used to that." Finally, she looked over her shoulder, her face unsmiling, but no longer the stern consternation she'd sported before. "But I adapt slowly."

"The Tok'ra live quite a long time, Commander."

Staring at her, Sammy pursed her lips. She shrugged, unsure how to respond, and walked away.

Jolinar watched her depart, smiling to herself. She felt like a great victory had been won.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

"Okay," Mackenzie said briskly as he shut the main lights, dimming the room significantly. "Are we ready, Daniel?"

Jack frowned at the surroundings. He could barely see his hand in front of his face. "I thought we were going to hypnotize him, not hold a séance."

The psychiatrist gave Jack only a brief irritated look before going around to turn on a desk lamp behind Daniel. The archeologist was following Mackenzie's movements with his eyes, sitting very still on the stool. He barely acknowledged Jack and Janet, focused on everything Mackenzie was doing.

Jack frowned, noting the rigid shoulders and leaned towards Frasier, who was sitting there with the recorder ready. "Uh, couldn't we get someone else?" he whispered.

Giving Jack a surprised look, Janet whispered back, keeping her eyes on Daniel, "Who else were you thinking of?"

"Uh, I don't know…Anyone but him." Jack made a face at Mackenzie's back, giving Daniel a smile which Daniel returned with a weaker version. Jack's own smile flipped upside down as he saw the small shivers going up and down Daniel's arms before he clenched his hands stiffly in his lap.

"The only other person qualified was Doctor Warner, but I can't and won't pull him out of surgery," Janet pointed out. "Daniel asked for this. I would have offered him someone else, but there wasn't any time." She gave Jack an irked look. "You're the one who came barging in, telling me to drop everything and get this done. Well, here he is."

"Daniel, you have to relax," Mackenzie murmured, unaware of the conversation behind him.

"I am," murmured Daniel; his fists clenched then unclenched as he tracked Mackenzie until the psychiatrist sat down in front of him.

"If you want, I can give you a mild sedative to relax you."

Daniel stiffened further, raising him higher on his seat. "No drugs."

"But it would further—"

"He said no," Jack cut in. Daniel's nervous face was suddenly superimposed with one of him barefoot, huddled in a padded room, drugs skittering him closer to another realm and further from reality. He swallowed the sour taste rising in his mouth.

Mackenzie sighed. "Really, this would go much better and much faster—"

"No," Jack repeated in an even tighter voice.

The psychiatrist turned to Daniel instead. "Daniel, it would be—"

"Look," Jack snapped, "What part of no didn't you understand?"

Mackenzie pushed up his glasses. "Now see here."

"We don't have time for it," Janet said abruptly, earning a surprised gape from Jack and Daniel. "Doctor Jackson is needed for the mission. Drugs in his system will only delay him." She indicated her clipboard. "Besides, the _re'klya_ he wore left minute traces of nanocytes. I can't risk any more drugs without knowing how they'll interact."

Mackenzie glanced over to Jack.

"Uh…what she said," Jack said smugly. "No."

Sighing again, Mackenzie pulled out his pen. "Very well, if you insist."

"Oh…but I do," Jack drawled.

"Ahem," Mackenzie sternly looked over to the colonel who gazed back without apology. "Let's try it this way then, shall we?" He moved the pen towards Daniel. Drawn to the silver cylinder, Daniel's eyes followed it until it was a foot away from his face.

"Do you see it, Daniel?" the psychiatrist asked softly.

Nodding, Daniel didn't reply.

"Do you notice how it catches the light?" Mackenzie turned the pen slowly, letting the light from the desk lamp glint off the shiny surface. "Notice how it is very bright?"

Daniel nodded again, the lines around his mouth tight.

"Now, Daniel. You have to relax. Don't try so hard."

Jack made a face. The idea of hypnosis was always an uncomfortable one for him. To think someone could be doing anything they wanted without his knowledge with him caught under some freaky trance twisted his insides into knots. And watching it being done to Daniel had the same effect.

"Follow the pen, Daniel," Mackenzie said, moving it closer. "All you see is this pen. There's nothing else in the room." He paused, watching Daniel for a moment. "Move towards the pen, Daniel, feel everything lighten…"

Daniel's eyes fluttered for a brief moment.

"Daniel, you are getting sleepy."

_You've got to be kidding me_, Jack thought, rolling his eyes. He opened his mouth to comment when he felt a heel firmly pressing down on his foot. He grimaced, swallowing the yelp, looking sideways at the owner who was frowning at him. Chastened, Jack leaned against the lab table and settled for scowling at the back of Mackenzie's balding head.

"Daniel…can you still hear me?"

"Y-yes," Daniel said dreamily, still looking at the pen.

"Good. I'm going to take the pen away now. When it disappears, I want you to close your eyes and relax further." Slowly, retracting the pen from view, Mackenzie waited until Daniel's eyes were completely closed before speaking up again. "Can you still hear me?"

"Yes."

"Do you know who I am?"

Daniel frowned. "Doctor Mackenzie." His frown deepened.

Jack bit back his grin. Wrong question to ask.

"Yes, well…Daniel, I want you to go back in your memory like rewinding a tape. Do you understand?"

Daniel murmured he did.

"Go back three days, back to the ship…"

"Ship…" Daniel's brow furrowed. "Hathor…She…"

Jack stepped forward, but Frasier snagged him by the arm, shaking her head.

"You're only watching, Daniel. She can't hurt you any more."

"Always…c-come back…" Daniel whispered, shivering.

"She can't hurt you, Daniel. Listen to me. She's not there. You're only watching. Watching, remember?"

"Watching."

"That's correct. Now…what do you see?"

Daniel frowned, eyes shut. He cringed, twitching in his seat. "Can't see."

Mackenzie blinked. "That's right. You were blind, weren't you?"

Jack growled under his breath. Frasier's grip tightened around his arm.

"You couldn't see. Could you, Daniel?"

"D-dark…Jack…"

"He's not there, Daniel. Just you and Hathor, remember?"

"Jermak…"

"Yes, he was there as well. Daniel, you couldn't see, right?"

"Why the hell does he keep mentioning that?" Jack hissed, unable to contain himself.

"Sh!" Mackenzie looked over his shoulder with a glare. He turned back to Daniel. "Daniel?"

"Can't see." Daniel's voice rose higher with panic.

Mackenzie leaned forward. "Remember Daniel, this already happened. It can't hurt you any more."

"Can't see…"

"But you can hear."

Daniel paused.

"Did you hear them, Daniel?"

"Y-yes…" Daniel murmured, slowly nodding, lines still furrowing his forehead.

"What were they saying?"

Daniel frowned. "They're talking about us."

"Us?"

"Jack. Me. She wants to...keep me..." Daniel made a face.

Frasier glanced over to Jack, observing the colonel's jaw, a muscle twitching. Discreetly, she shuffled closer, making sure she was near enough to stop him in case the man decided to rearrange some furniture in the lab.

"Are they saying anything else, Daniel?"

"They..."

"Daniel, remember, they can't hurt you any more. You're just listening in."

_"Perhaps we should make a set. You can have him while I have this one."_

"They want to do the same to Jack...Can't let them..." Fidgeting, Daniel was growing more and more upset. "Can't let them do this to him..."

Mackenzie checked his watch and frowned. "Daniel, I need you to remain focused. They didn't do that to Colonel O'Neill. I need you to concentrate. Do you hear me?"

"Y-yes..."

"What else did they say?"

"They're going to kill Ra. They told him they caught us. He was coming to kill us in person."

"Good. Anything more?"

"Spy..." Daniel tensed. "She spoke of a spy."

"Daniel, what did she say exactly? Did she say who the spy was?"

Jack bunched his fists, seeing the tensing of muscles along Daniel's arms, legs stiffening as if ready to run.

_"We told him we would not fetch him for two days. Already he hungers for another...session in there."_

"She did something to the spy. He won't refuse her. Said he'll do anything for her."

Jack leaned over to Frasier. "Nishta?"

"Could be," she whispered back, keeping her eyes on Daniel, her chest tightening as she watched the young archeologist hiss.

"Daniel?" Mackenzie looked up from his scribbling notes.

"Keeps...keeps touching me...hurting me...like her..."

Eyebrow arched, Maybourne leaned closer. "Her? Who's her?"

Daniel squirmed, and Jack's heart dropped to his stomach as he suddenly knew.

"L—" Daniel wouldn't finish. He shook his head, getting more upset.

Mackenzie, however, ever the true scientist, grew interested. "Daniel? Who's her? Is she there?"

"No..." Daniel's arm jerked as he fought off phantom touches from his memory. "Keep away...no..."

"Daniel?" The psychiatrist touched Daniel's arm. "Let my hand ground you, Daniel. Distance yourself from them."

Body twitching, pulling away from the unfamiliar touch, Daniel shook his head, brow furrowing. "No...Jack...I...I want to leave here...J—"

"Daniel, I need you to concentrate..." Mackenzie gripped Daniel's arm harder.

"Get away...get away!" A hand whipped out and struck Mackenzie before the psychiatrist could jerk back. The man stared at Daniel as he thrashed, almost falling out of his seat before Jack lunged forward and caught him.

"No!"

"Daniel," Jack said urgently, keeping an eye on the door, shaking his head furiously at Mackenzie as he got up shakily, reaching for the phone. "Daniel, listen to me. It's okay."

Tilting his head towards the voice, Daniel stilled. "Jack?"

"Yeah, big guy. It's me." Jack shuffled closer, letting Daniel sag against his shoulder.

"Ha—"

"She didn't do anything to me. Daniel...I need you to listen to what they're saying. You said it was important."

"Important..." Daniel frowned, wincing. He stirred in Jack's hold. "Someone...someone was contacting...Jermak..."

_"I will question him myself when I arrive in five days!"_

"God..."

Jack could feel the shivering as Daniel struggled, threatening to break through the trance.

"Daniel...listen to me. Don't listen to anything else for a moment."

Mackenzie stood up straighter to protest but surprisingly quieted when Frasier shot him a glare.

Jack rubbed Daniel's shoulder. "Feel that? That's real. We're sitting somewhere, just listening in."

"Listening..."

"Right. They can't hurt you. I won't let them." Jack circled his thumb around the joint of Daniel's shoulder. "No one's getting past me, Daniel. I need you to only listen. Just listen to what they're saying. Please."

Daniel scrunched up his nose.

"Daniel?"

_"Five days? Of course, my lord. My apologies. I was told you were to arrive in another six days. I wished to prepare the temples in Tau'ri for the event of your arrival and the candidates for you to choose your new queen." _

Jack winced as Daniel's hand gripped his forearm tightly. He didn't think Daniel had it in him. But he didn't slip back. He sat there, staring at Daniel, listening to the harsh breathing.

_"Be ready for me in five days."_

_"Five days. Che mar, he comes early."_

Daniel's head shot up, jerking out of the trance so abruptly, so quickly, Jack yelped as the hands became claws and squeezed tighter than he expected. Jack started, and the support he was giving Daniel was gone. The two men stumbled to the ground, Daniel off his chair with a gasp.

"Are you okay?" Frasier demanded, dropping to her knees. She gave Jack a cursor look before moving to Daniel. No sooner did she touch him than Daniel's eyes flew open, and he jerked back, hands up defensively. She pulled back, stung.

"Daniel!" Jack sat up in a flash, let his face fill Daniel's view instead. The colonel shook him.

Blue eyes cleared, and Daniel blinked at Jack, his eyes wide with urgency. "I...Jack, we're in big trouble."

A chill went down O'Neill's spine at the familiar words.

_"We're all in big trouble. They're coming..."_

"What?" Jack gave Daniel another shake to get his attention focused. "What?"

Crouched over, Daniel was rasping. "Ra...He's coming..."

"We know."

"No...He's coming..._early_...I heard him...he's coming a day early, Jack."

Jack tensed. "You sure?"

Daniel looked nauseated. "It's not two and a half days, Jack. It's one. Jack he's coming sometime tomorrow. God...we have no time."

"Get General Hammond and Maybourne in here," Jack tossed the order over Daniel's bowed head. "_Now._"

Frasier didn't even hesitate. She backed away from Daniel, the archeologist still not looking at her and grabbed the wall phone, speaking to it quickly.

"He'll be here tomorrow, Jack."

"Easy."

Daniel shivered. "Tomorrow. I thought we had more time. God, I thought we had two days..." His head shot up.

Jack was beginning to really hate this. "What? Don't do this to me! I'm too old to have this popping up on me any more."

_"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound ungrateful. I'm still sort of jumpy." _

_"I suppose with Ra coming in a little over two and a half days, we're all on edge." _

_"You're lucky."_

Daniel abruptly stilled.

Leaning closer, Jack felt Daniel's grip on his arm tighten. "Daniel?"

Lifting his head, face stark white, Daniel whispered, "I know who the spy is."

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Pacing, hands twitching, Graham Simmons could barely stand still. He had been busy before by moving statues on top of both coverstones, hiding the bodies behind another cluster of statues in the other reality, but after that, all he had left to do was wait.

She was coming.

"Beloved," he murmured, a small smile creeping up his face. Soon. Soon she was going to come, and they would be reunited. She said she would come. They would seal the portal, trapping the rebels in the other reality, and the threat of rebellion would be over. No more war. And once Ra was dead, they would rule.

His hands twitched once more, and he sandwiched them between his thighs, rocking as he sat down on the coverstone in the alternate reality's room. He stared at the blank space where the mirror wall was before, longingly at the idle Stargate in the other chamber where his reality lay. Once Ra was dead, he could return to the golden sarcophagus Hathor said was keeping him alive. He was dying already, barely able to think, and she was concerned. She told him she was worried. He needed to tell her everything, where he was, where they were so she could come and get him.

God, he missed her.

_"You were dead, our Beloved." She stood over him as the final panel opened. He sat up and stared down at his belly where the staff weapon had punched a hole through. He dimly recalled Franklin being grabbed before he could spin around and fire a shot. Then he remembered agonizing pain as something exploded just below his chest, his shoulder strap for his rifle ripped in the blast. He was aware of smoke wafting out of his own body before he fell back, glowing eyes surrounding him._

_A face framed with brown hair, quite plain actually, but woven with golden threads and thick reddish braids peered down at him._

_Simmons jerked as her eyes glowed. "Stay away from me!"_

_"We mean you no harm."_

_"Nice try, snake, but I'm not biting!" He gawked at the boxlike container he was lying in. "What the—" He glared at the petite woman. "What did you do to me?"_

_"You were dead."_

_Simmons stared down at himself._

_"But we saved you." She came closer, the bells and jewelry around her tinkling like fragile glass chimes. "With our sarcophagus."_

_"Saved me? W-why?" Graham leaned away from her, flinching as her hand came up to cup his cheek. He couldn't move, mesmerized by the soft colors swirling in her eyes._

_"Because...we knew...you would help your people...you would help us..."_

_He couldn't move. He saw his own image reflected in her eyes. Closer and closer they came, and he was frozen there, trapped. Before he knew it, her lips were sealed over his._

_Cinnamon. He could taste cinnamon. Somewhere in the back of his mind, someone was screaming this was wrong. But that voice faded as the scent of her surrounded him, his face captured between her hands, and he soon realized how right it was._

Frowning, Simmons wondered why the rest of his memory was a bit foggy. His recollection was elusive as he tried to recall. But her face came to mind, and he ignored the rest. When he saw her again in the other reality, wearing the lab coat instead of the jewels she deserved, he'd nearly lost control. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her. He missed her so badly that his body ached like he'd lost all strength. But he couldn't betray his love, not with a poor substitute. So he backed away from the Doctor Fraiser woman before she could touch him with temptation. But lord, he wanted to kiss her like his queen and see if they were the same. He was going to die if he didn't see her again. He needed her. His heart thudded against his ribcage. When was she coming?

"Mmph."

Graham turned to look over his shoulder at the cluster of statues. He could see one of the soldiers beginning to stir from the blow he was forced to give them on the head after the zat wore off too quickly. Rising, giving the Stargate of his reality one more hungry look, he approached the area, ignoring the other soldiers who were still senseless. He found himself under Kawalsky's glare.

"Sir," he murmured, crouching down. "You shouldn't have tried to fight me."

"Mmph." Kawalsky angrily moved and nodded his head, floundering like an out of water fish with his hands tied behind his back, mouth gagged, eyes blazing. "Mmph!"

"You don't understand. You keep trying to fight her when she wants to free you from Ra."

The captain snorted. Simmons sighed, sitting back on his heels, surveying the others.

"Will you at least try to listen to what I have to say?"

Kawalsky grunted, shifting in his seat, his legs twitching as he fought to free himself.

"Let me try to make you understand first." Waving his hand at the empty space, Simmons stared at the Stargate on the other side again. "When she comes, we'll be sealing this up permanently."

The captain froze.

"No more war. Two major leaders gone, no one left to lead the rebels, the rebellion over." Simmons smiled brightly. "It's really for the best. You'll have what you want. No Ra. And my queen and I will have what we want. No war."

"Wu een?" Kawalsky said muffled behind his gag.

Nodding, Graham swept his hand across the chamber. "She doesn't want Ra in our world any more than we do. She wants to help us, Charlie."

Kawalsky's eyes narrowed at his first name.

"And she loves me." Simmons stared at the other side of the room for a moment before turning back to the captain. "We'll both get what we want." He pulled off the gag slowly from Kawalsky and looked at him hopefully. "Do you understand?"

The moment Kawalsky's mouth was free, the soldier exploded.

"You sick bastard! Getting your rocks off on some snake bitch! How can you swallow all that crap she fed you and—"

Simmons snarled and shoved the gag over Kawalsky's mouth again.

"Mmph!" The captain glared at Graham. "Mmph mu kin mit ch!" Kawalsky bounced up and down on his seat, frustrated.

"You're wrong," the younger soldier hissed, standing and backing away. "You're wrong! She wouldn't lie to me!" He pointed angrily at Kawalsky. "I've done everything I could to make sure Jermak didn't find you all. I gave him bits of information of unimportant bases so he'd stop asking me for the main base. I wanted time to convince you all, find a way to help both you and her. You guys wouldn't listen. I stopped some of your raiding parties on their mines, shut down Langford's communications base and still, you kept trying. Two years. Two years of fighting a war when we could have just joined her and just won!"

Kawalsky's eyes bulged. "Mutherin?"

Simmons shrugged, not caring. "They were breaking all her codes. They were giving away her secrets, her plans that were hidden from Ra's men Jermak and Seth. I couldn't let them. And giving Jermak the communications bunker was small compared to what he really wanted." He pointed to Kawalsky. "He wanted to destroy you all, the base, everyone. My queen only wanted to stop you and join forces."

"Moo ill Matherin?" the captain's voice rose behind the muzzle.

Graham shrugged again. "It wasn't an important base. It was only a depot. Nothing but old men and women. I didn't know you moved children and Doctor O'Neill in there."

Kawalsky howled against his gag, lunging forward as hard as he could, only to be kicked down by Graham.

"It wasn't my fault!" Simmons screamed at him, face red. Kawalsky stilled, gawking at him. "If you guys had just given up, none of it had to happen! There was supposed to be only a small group there! Not over a hundred people!" He ran a hand over his hair, pacing again. "I didn't know. She didn't know either."

Kawalsky grunted in disbelief.

Glaring, Simmons waved a fist at him. "Don't give me that! She didn't know! She tried to stop Jermak, but Jermak had his own agenda. He tricked her! Told her they were only going to stop Ra, not wipe out the entire planet!"

Silent, the captain glowered at Simmons.

"Don't look at me like that," Simmons muttered, pacing faster. "I gave you a chance, but it wasn't working."

Kawalsky just stared at him.

"Don't look at me like that!" Simmons screamed louder, his glare stark and wild. Stunned, Kawalsky's eyes widened. Graham drew back his arm, ready to strike, to shut the eyes staring at him with such accusation when he felt the chamber hum under his feet.

A Stargate was being activated.

Automatically, he spun to stare at the room from his reality, but the Stargate there was silent. Shocked, Simmons staggered away from Kawalsky and the other men and gawked at the Stargate in the other reality.

The first chevron was lit.

"No," Simmons breathed. "You can't come here."

Second chevron lit.

"No. You have to keep away."

Third chevron.

Simmons darted back to the other Stargate, but no one was coming yet. He shakily pointed the zat gun at the wormhole as it gushed towards him, flinching as it stopped a foot away from engulfing his head.

He stood there waiting, staring at the glistening pool of light. He blankly looked at the weapon he held and lowered it with a frown.

Four people emerged from the event horizon, three in battle uniform, one in a cloak. Simmons was now rocking on his heels, fingering the zat he'd pocketed in his fatigues. As they neared, he nodded, recognizing John, Ferretti and Anderson.

"What's going on?" he asked in a steady voice.

The one in the cloak pulled the hood back. Pale blue unseeing eyes stared towards him.

"Doctor O'Neill." Simmons frowned, scanning him up and down, lingering at the bandanna covered head. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be resting?"

"I needed to examine the walls myself. See what I could translate," Dan said faintly.

"Where's Kawalsky? And the others?" John interrupted.

Stiffening, Simmons waved to the other room, to his reality. "They're searching the inner chambers." Graham noted John swallowed the lie with an absentminded nod and relaxed a bit. "You can tell the commander everything's okay so far. I've contacted the others. Colburn will know what to do when the moment arrives."

"Well," John broke in casually, "the commander wanted us to stay with Dan."

Simmons pasted a smile on his face, walking in front of them as he saw Ferretti and Anderson curiously looking towards the inner rooms. "I could stay with your brother." He casually patted Dan's shoulder, lingering there for a moment when he saw John tense for some reason.

"Actually," John interrupted, his tone a sharp edge, his hand tightening around the arm he was holding. "I would prefer to stay and help Dan."

Narrowing his eyes, Simmons muttered, "If you want." He wondered how he was going to steer the team somewhere, away from where he had Kawalsky.

"Mmph!"

The muffled sound was as loud as a shout, and everyone spun towards its direction. Simmons heard something behind him and whipped back around, Major Ferretti leaping for him, gun out. Catching sight of Dan reaching for something as well, he acted quickly, firing a shot at Ferretti with his zat. The soldier toppled instantly with a groan just as Simmons grabbed Dan's arm, wrenching him away from John as he pressed the zat into Dan's neck.

"Don't," seethed Simmons, pressing it deeper into the soft flesh. Anderson and John froze in their tracks. "I can probably shoot him twice before you can reach me." He hooked the hand with the zat around Dan's throat, choking him to prove this wasn't an empty threat. The other hand fumbled under Dan's cloak to see what Dan was trying to pull out. Simmons eyed the gun he found, amused. "Nice, but how did you expect to hit a target you couldn't see?" Simmons tsked, rubbing the gun barrel against Dan's jaw, staring at the other soldiers.

John glared at him. "You." He bunched a hand into a fist, and his eyes ignited like coals. "It was you all along, wasn't it? You told them where he was!" John's face burned angry red.

"I'm sorry, Captain, but you shouldn't have come." Simmons waved his zat towards the back where Kawalsky was. "Move it to the back. Now."

"You bastard," John breathed. He roared, running towards Simmons with his hands stretched out towards him. But the zat bolt departed the weapon and collided with his body, snaking around his limbs. John collapsed with a strangled sound.

"Don't!" Simmons warned Anderson as he saw the soldier tense, preparing to tackle him. "Not unless you want the doctor here lose his life a little sooner."

Anderson's jaw twitched, but the sergeant didn't move.

Simmons smiled lazily. "Like this? It was a gift from someone to me. Figured it would be useful if I kept it close by my side...Just in case."

Anderson growled under his breath.

Simmons wasn't impressed. He waved the zat towards Anderson, the other hand still scraping threateningly up and down Dan's cheek. "Down on your knees. Now. Hands behind your head."

Reluctantly, with one last look at Graham, the sergeant did as instructed, back rigid as he kneeled, hands laced together on the back of his head.

"Good. Real good." Without warning, Simmons fired his zat. Anderson didn't even have a chance to groan, falling sideways to the floor, convulsing a bit until he finally stilled.

Dan winced at the sound of impact. "Why are you doing this?" he asked Graham softly.

"It's for the best, Dan."

Frowning at the first name, the archeologist paused. "...Graham? Do you really know what you're doing?"

"Of course." Simmons smiled at him. "We're stopping a war."

"We?"

"Me...And my queen."

Dan stiffened. "Queen?" He sucked in his breath, fidgeting under Simmons' arm. "H-Hathor? You mean her?"

Eyeing him suspiciously, Simmons hedged, "Yeah...her...I know you were with her for a while. She told me how you tried to kill her."

Giving a short laugh, Dan sounded astonished. "I tried to kill her? She put these things in me!"

"Only because you resisted."

"Of course I resisted! She was destroying your world!"

Simmons stopped. "My world?"

Dan froze. "Y-yes...your world and mine." He took a step forward, his hands out in a placating gesture. "Graham...you really don't want to do this. She did something to you and—"

The zat gun hissed open, the three part weapon snapping into position. Dan must have heard it because he stopped. "Shut up. I don't want to hurt you. Never did but don't press your luck."

"She isn't who you think she is. I know."

"You know nothing!" the young soldier shrieked. His zat bumped wildly against Dan's shoulder, arm tightening further. The scholar gasped. "You don't know anything! You were sitting there in the sub, everyone helping you! We were fighting a war! A war that shouldn't have happened! We're starving, dying back there!"

Dan waved his hands helplessly. "Graham...helping her isn't the answer."

"Shut up."

"She's a Goa'uld. Goa'ulds don't help us. They only want to destroy us. You can't believe what she tells you."

"I said SHUT UP!" Simmons spun Dan around, screaming in his face.

Released, Dan whipped his arms up, slapping Graham's away and staggering as he tried to leap for Ferretti's rifle.

Simmons' finger quivered, and the zat fired before he could stop himself. He could hear the gagged protests from the conscious soldiers in the back, but he ignored it as he coldly watched the bolt dancing around, twisting Dan's limbs as the scientist dropped with a gasp.

Walking up to him, waiting as the body stilled, Simmons bent down to the unconscious scholar, touching his cheek. Guilt filtered through his eyes as he heard the scientist groan.

"You shouldn't have said that about her," Graham murmured.

Dan didn't respond, head lolling to the side, revealing the _re'klya_ on his temples.

"You shouldn't have come," he hissed, the regret gone from his face. "You shouldn't have come here. You'll ruin everything." He grabbed Dan, pulling him unsympathetically towards the statues where the others were.


	41. Chapter 40

**CHAPTER FORTY**

"How long has it been?" Maybourne asked, failing to hide the impatient tone of his voice as he turned to General Hammond.

"Too long if you ask me," the commander muttered as she rocked on her heels behind Jack.

_No one asked you_, Jack thought as he scowled at the Stargate, fully aware of the others' equally concerned faces reflected off the observation window, each waiting for the signal that all was clear. "How the hell did I get talked into this?" he muttered under his breath as he folded his arms in front of him. He fought the urge to tap his foot as he waited for any word returning from John and his friend Daniel, who had somehow convinced him to let him go disguised as Dan.

Coming up carefully, leaning on a cane, the real Dan O'Neill nodded, bumping into the back of the technician's chair until Teal'c's hand on his shoulder signaled him to stop. He forced his voice to be light. "Daniel can be pretty persuasive, I suppose."

"Unfortunately," Jack grumbled, glued to the Stargate.

"Sounds like you two have something in common." The remark came from Hansen in the back.

Dan chuckled weakly. "Yeah, well, John called it the..." He frowned, tilting his head. "The..." His face turned to stone. "Can't remember." He hunched over his cane, swearing softly under his breath.

Concerned, Jack gave Dan a sideways glance.

Hansen jumped in with the term before Dan could get even more upset. "Puppy dog look, Dan."

"Dan-yel O'Neill does not look like an infant canine," Jolinar pointed out, puzzled. She scanned Dan up and down.

"Do not concern yourself with their words," Teal'c jumped in. "I too am often confused by their numerous colloquialisms."

Carter tossed in a "Not my fault" and pointedly looked over to Jack.

Rolling his eyes, Jack made no comment, realizing they were just desperately trying to pass the time.

Hansen snorted through her nose, drumming her fingers against her arm. "We should have all gone through."

Carter craned her neck to look at her twin behind her. "But then Simmons might have gotten suspicious."

"Oh, like Daniel's short hair wouldn't be a dead giveaway?" drawled Dan. He fingered a long bang. "What's he going to say if Graham asks? Oh, I decided I needed a haircut before I head over to kick some Goa'uld ass?"

"He has something covering it." Jack felt he had to say something.

Dan grunted. "No offense, but that's a weak disguise." He smirked, although it looked forced. "Trust me, I'm much better looking than he is."

"You look like a hippie," Hansen grumbled.

Groaning, Dan tried not to cough as he protested. "Man, why do you and John have such a hang up about my hair?" He ruefully ran a hand through the strands. "I kinda like it. Think it gives me a sort of rakish look."

Jack eyed the bangs, noting they draped perfectly to cover the _re'klya._ His eyes dulled, saddened as he saw Dan drop his hand, almost casually as if the last departing touch to his locks didn't ensure they concealed the devices completely.

"We could have gone over and overpowered him," Hansen griped.

"But we need to know who he's spoken to and what secrets we have lost to him," reminded Jolinar.

"We have Kawalsky over there already," Jack muttered, keeping his eyes on the idle Stargate, telling it to hurry the hell up and open already. "We have enough people over there right now to take down a small government, for crying out loud."

Carter nodding, agreeing. "As for as Simmons knows, we don't know a thing. He wouldn't be on guard."

"I should have been the one to go with my brother, at least." Dan gripped the curved handle of his support, frowning. "I know Graham a little better than Daniel does. I could have done it."

Jack silently disagreed as he glanced sideways at the ailing man. But his gaze drifted back to the front, and his frown deepened. God only knew what was happening over there right now.

Jack hated waiting.

"What's taking so long?" Dan murmured. He tightened his grip on the cane. "You don't think your men, Kawalsky and John..." He turned towards the back. "Major Carter? Sammy?"

Hansen glared at the still Stargate. "Could be anything, Dan. They could be talking."

"We could still try the Tok'ra. See if they can get there. A ship over your man's head would be an element he hadn't accounted for," Hammond suggested.

Seated on the console, Carter shook her head as she fiddled with the keyboard. "We contacted them, and the closest ship they have is two days away. While they were intrigued with the idea of helping their alternate selves, they didn't want to risk their agents for a minute possibility of a threat from Ra." She made a face, remembering their semi-sympathetic attempt to explain before they abruptly disconnected, stating it was too dangerous to remain in communication for so long.

Jack looked behind his shoulder to Jolinar, who arched an eyebrow at the recount of the Tok'ra's response. "Like you said before. They are way different here."

"Indeed."

"We can do nothing but wait then," Teal'c announced, hands clasped behind him, ever the image of patience if it weren't for the odd twitch at the corner of his mouth. "Daniel Jackson was certain he could talk to your Simmons."

"Come on, Daniel," Jack murmured, glaring at the quiet Stargate, willing it to light up. "I told you. I hate waiting."

SG1SG1SG1

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He was on top of somebody's leg.

Daniel blinked, seeing the dark green colors of the battle fatigues up close. Frowning, he wondered why it was so near him. He could feel the devices digging into his head, an uncomfortable familiar sensation that made him want to sit up immediately and pull them away even though he knew they were only glued on this time. Before he rose though, he sensed something, rather, someone pacing back and forth, muttering under his breath.

Then, he remembered.

_Jack was right. He did shoot first_, Daniel thought as he winced, feeling the tight bonds wrapped around his hands, snug under his gold bracelet, pulling arms taut behind him. The familiar aches of the zat clung to him, little minute shocks twitching muscles like cramps. He knew Jack was not going to be happy about this turn of events.

"Where is she? Where is she?"

Frowning, Daniel shook completely free from his cloak and dared to raise his eyes. The shadows surrounding him solidified to the gagged soldiers around him, spread out in a wide circle, eyes watching him with worry, some darting to glance between the statues to shoot a smothering stare at the traitor. Kawalsky's eyes were dark with concern, but they lightened when he saw Daniel moving. His eyes widened though when he realized Daniel was looking right at him.

Jackson wanted to tell him he wasn't Dan, but then realized he was gagged as well with something coarse and foul smelling. He grimaced and tried to turn his head without drawing too much attention to himself. It was easy. Simmons was still pacing between both chambers of realities. Hidden behind the cluster of statues, Daniel was able to sit up without him noticing. Shifting, Kawalsky bent his knees to give Daniel something to lean against, and the archeologist was able to sit up finally to see who he was using as a pillow.

John.

The captain was glaring at Simmons, brown eyes burning like coals, tracking the pacing back and forth. He didn't notice Daniel was alert until he felt a nudge from Daniel's foot. Twisting his head, flat on his back, he shook it when Daniel nodded towards him.

Mentally sighing, Daniel knew it meant Simmons had taken the blades and pocket knives from their uniforms. Daniel scanned the area they were placed behind. The statues wouldn't provide sharp edges to cut free, the figures all intact. And he couldn't reach the others across from him without drawing too much attention to himself. Despite the cluster of statues, they weren't enough to provide a good cover.

Daniel eyed his feet warily. The boots were still laced, and he could feel the uncomfortable sheath of a thin blade tucked inside between his sock and the footwear. It was his best chance. He had hoped to talk to Simmons, but the rebel had an itchy trigger finger. But just as Daniel had figured, Simmons had disregarded him as a threat and left him alone.

John nodded frantically as Daniel pointed to his boot with his chin. The archeologist grimaced, falling to his stomach again as he heard Simmons kick something metallic out of frustration.

"Where is she?"

Daniel swallowed, hearing the soldier's voice, the longing and wondered briefly if it was for the Goa'uld queen or the sarcophagus. Personally, he didn't want to see either one again. With that thought, he struggled, tucking his knees close to his chest, wincing as he tried to loop his bound arms under his rear and over his knees. He nearly gasped out loud, his arms stretching, back straining as he did a poor imitation of a contortionist. Finally, he had to stop when all it did was threaten to rip his shoulder out of its socket.

"Mmph..." Kawalsky nodded towards himself, head bobbing up and down, indicating he could try as he realized what Daniel wanted to do. Daniel eyed the chamber beyond the statues and shook his head. Simmons might be able to see them. The rebel was muttering to himself, getting more and more upset, their sudden appearance the catalyst for his mental state as his plan apparently began to unravel. The last thing Daniel needed was to have attention drawn to them. The archeologist took a deep breath through his nose and lay down on his side.

"Mmph?" the captain inquired softly under Simmons' tirade.

Ignoring him, Daniel curled in, tucking his knees once more to his chest, until his arms behind him were the same level of his boots. He could hear Kawalsky and John's quickened breath of excitement as he twisted, reaching around himself to his boots that way.

Heaving, Daniel ignored his own gag for a moment as he slipped numb fingers inside his boot, gingerly pulling out the blade by the handle. His brow furrowed, unable to see what his own hands were doing behind his back, fingers tingling from the cut-off of circulation and unable to feel accurately where the sheathed edge was.

Like chopsticks, his index finger and third finger clamped around the thin handle. Daniel worked his jaw, frustrated as the tight bindings in his boot prevented him from easily taking it out.

_Come on, come on. _

Daniel nearly sagged in overwhelming relief when it finally came free with a whispered scrape. Fingers trembling, he began sawing at the bonds wrapped around his ankles. But after a while, he couldn't tell if he was halfway done or if the knife hadn't even made a scratch on them. His neck ached from twisting around constantly to try and see behind him. He was about to scoot over to John when he heard footsteps pounding over to them. He froze, fingers curled around the knife towards John. He could feel John rubbing his knee against the back of his legs, trying to cover Daniel's hands. Frantically, the archeologist shuffled closer to drop the blade when he saw a shadow over him.

"What are you doing?" the rebel hissed. "Stop moving around back here."

"Mm..." Daniel wiggled his nose, trying to move his mouth to shape words. He jumped as he saw Simmons reach out a hand, mentally cursing himself for his reaction. He was supposed to be blind. He could feel his face slick with sweat and for one irrational moment, hoped the glue would stay on despite it.

Suddenly, his gag was pulled free.

Daniel stilled, mouth partly opened from the muffle.

Simmons pulled away, and Daniel thought he heard some concern in his voice. "Better?"

Running his tongue over his parched mouth, Daniel nodded slowly. "Y-yes...thank you," he stuttered. Daniel tried to stay still, squirming a bit. "The ropes are a little...tight, though." He shifted again and winced. "Um...could you...?"

Crouching, Simmons studied Daniel. The archeologist pretended to stare off to the soldier's ear, off center, his hands behind him curled around the knife, the sharp edge digging into his palm. But he didn't dare loosen up, fearing it would fall, so he endured the sharp pain of the edge cutting a fine line into his hand. His heart was pounding, wondering if Graham could actually see through his disguise.

Abruptly, Simmons yanked him closer, ignoring Daniel's yelp and the others' garbled shouting. Daniel's fingers instinctively flinched, and to his dismay, the knife dropped out. He heard no sound though and wondered where it went.

Daniel felt himself being turned around and was now staring at John, who was discreetly maneuvering the knife that landed on his thigh to drop to the floor quietly before sliding over to cover the blade. Daniel's knees wobbled with relief.

Unaware of all this, Simmons pulled the ropes around Daniel's wrists loose, spun Daniel around again, then jerked the arms around to the front. Before Daniel could react, Simmons wrapped the ends around his wrists once more, tying the hands in the front now.

"How's that?"

Daniel nodded silently, grimacing as his back twinge. He could only imagine how the others must feel now, still bound, their hands pulled back behind them.

"I can't let you go." Simmons almost sounded apologetic. He patted Daniel's shoulder in a way Daniel felt was very condescending. "I know you must be uncomfortable, but it'll be over soon. When she comes, we'll leave you here. There should be enough of those bracelet things to allow you to stay."

John growled behind the rag in his mouth. But Simmons ignored him.

"Why are you doing this?" Daniel asked softly.

"Don't you see?" Simmons beamed at Daniel. "This will answer all our problems."

"It...it will?"

"I have a handle on the situation here. It'll work."

Daniel gulped down. "What will work?"

Simmons patted his shoulder again like he was a kid. "The war, Dan. The war."

Stunned, Daniel couldn't respond. He worried his lower lip as he tried to think of a response that wouldn't spark the rebel off. He could hear the others moving restlessly, telling him he couldn't waste any more time. He could see over Simmons' shoulder both Ferrettis' and Anderson's anxious faces, limbs twisting to try and break free. He kept talking to keep Simmons focused on him. "I don't understand, Graham. Tell me."

"You guys can stay here." Breathless with excitement over his idea, Simmons squeezed Daniel's shoulder tightly. The archeologist could feel the tremors racking the arm on his shoulder. He closed his eyes. He knew how that felt. There was a time, everything hurt so much, he really thought he would die if he didn't return to the sarcophagus.

Simmons was still going on and on. "When she arrives, we'll seal this portal up. With no rebellion, we will rule the planet. No one has to suffer any more." He grinned at Daniel. "Isn't that great?"

If he had a tail, it would wag right now, Daniel thought he could hear Jack say. He smiled weakly. "That's...that's great..."

Simmons examined his face and darkened. "You don't believe me." Withdrawing his hand, Simmons sat back on his heels. "You think she's lying to me, too, don't you?"

"N-no...of course not."

Simmons grabbed Daniel by the collar of his cloak. John stamped his feet, trying to get Simmons' attention away from the archeologist. Not easily distracted, Graham pulled Daniel closer to his face.

"You guys were screwing it up for three years. You should have allied with her instead of resisting. No one would have had to die!"

"How can you be sure this will end the war?" Daniel blurted before he could stop himself. Inwardly, he winced. _Great going. Antagonize him. You've got to stop hanging around Jack. You're picking up all his bad habits._

Daniel gritted his teeth as he felt Simmons shake him angrily.

"I know it'll work! I have everything under control here!"

_"No, you look, Jack! I have everything under control, okay? God, you never show me any respect! Your way didn't work. Now I'm handling it! All you have to do is hang in there!"_

Daniel felt sick, his own drug-induced euphoric words slapping him. Hang in there? They hung in that dank pit of a mine, slaving away while he feasted and draped over a throne, hallucinating in moments of grandeur. In a flash, Simmons' face contorted to his own distorted face of desperation, the one he'd never seen in the mirror but could see reflected in Jack's eyes as he pointed the gun at him in the storage room closet. Bile rose, threatening to drown him. No, he wasn't like that. Not any more. Instinctively, Daniel whipped up his tied hands and knocked the soldier's away.

That was a mistake.

Simmons turned beet red, nostrils flaring, his youthful roundish face unrecognizable. "You ungrateful—"

Chest pounding, Daniel felt his collar pulled tight as he was hauled up.

"Mon uf a mit ch!" Kawalsky started yelling through his gag. Other soldiers joined in, shouting, words barely discernible, rapid and loud to distract Graham.

"Shut up! Shut up!" Simmons hollered angrily. Daniel felt himself being yanked roughly and dragged away from the others. Still bound, he could only struggle uselessly before he was dropped a few feet away from the coverstone. He found himself staring across at the twisted laughing face of one of the statues propped up on top of the platform, its expression like a perverted version of the classic comedy mask. It looked like it was laughing at him, at his failure to reach Simmons.

"What were you guys really doing coming back here?" Simmons demanded, shaking Daniel. "What was their plan, Doctor O'Neill?"

"No plan," Daniel replied faintly as he tested the bonds around his legs. To his surprise, the rope stretched. He must have been able to cut through some of them after all. He tensed his calves, pulling them as far apart as they would allow, pulling at the rope. He kept talking to keep Simmons from discovering. "We were really just coming here to get the bracelets. They'll be expecting us back soon." It wasn't hard to disguise his voice to a weaker tone. His heart was too busy hammering against his chest to pump enough air for him to speak. He resisted staring at Simmons, whose face was inches from him, the wild look in his eyes painfully familiar. "We...we were coming to see if there were more bracelets for everyone else. That's all."

Simmons peered at his face and grunted. "You shouldn't have come." He gave the collar intertwined in his fist a violent twist.

_You're telling me_, Daniel thought, grimacing as he felt the collar tighten around his throat. He choked, coughing. He flung up his hands again but couldn't pry the rebel's hands away from the shrinking collar.

"Mph muk in ick! Mof ou muff im!" John was screaming, twisting in his bonds. Daniel wanted to turn around, tell him it was okay, Simmons wouldn't hurt him, but he felt a hand squeezing his forearm so tightly he was beginning to have doubts. Daniel vaguely heard John's boots slamming down on the floor, trying to get Simmons' attention, and he silently told the captain not to in his mind.

_Just get free_, he thought to himself. _Please don't do this._

Somehow, perhaps John was already reasoning with himself or maybe Daniel got through although Daniel didn't know how. John calmed, only growling behind his gag. Simmons didn't even give him a glance as he dragged Daniel towards the DHD and slammed him against the crystal without remorse. Daniel slid down to the coverstone and hunched over, hissing as if he was in pain. His hands, concealed by his slouched posture, fumbled for the ropes around his legs, tugging at them frantically. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the weapons Simmons had confiscated, just a foot away. He picked at a stubborn knot more frantically.

"Contact them," Simmons hissed. "Make sure no one else comes through."

"You don't want to do this," started Daniel, grunting as he received a box on the head for it. Ears ringing, he stiffened as he felt Simmons pat a hand on his bandanna. He pulled away, talking rapidly as he tried to get Simmons to focus on something else. "You don't want to do this. Whatever they told you, it isn't true. You can't possibly want to ally with the—" He yelped when he felt an arm wrap around his throat, jerking him back, the bandanna ripped off, revealing his short hair.

"What the hell?"

Just then, his leg ropes snapped.

Daniel twisted relying on the fact that Simmons was expecting him to be weaker. But as he lurched away, ready to lunge for the guns he spied on the floor by the DHD, he felt a leg kick out at his knees. Daniel fell with a sharp cry, rolling away as he felt, rather than saw the shadow over him.

"Son of a—"

"No!" Daniel grabbed Simmons around the knees, fingers only able to claw at his pant leg with his wrists bound. He saw the soldier bring up his zat, and out of desperation, Daniel rammed his shoulder behind Simmons' knees. The younger man grunted, toppling over and the alien weapon skittered across the chamber as Daniel landed on top of him.

"Daniel!" Someone was free back there.

He didn't bother looking up to see who as he felt Graham wiggle out from under him. "Get Jack! Open the—" Daniel felt an elbow slam down between his shoulders, and he dropped on his stomach, winded. Dimly, he saw Simmons running for the other chamber. Forcing himself to rise, Daniel fumbled for a gun, found metal cool against his palm and lurched after him.

As he crossed the invisible boundary, he saw Graham push the statue away, dropping down to the DHD as the wall came up behind Daniel. But before Daniel could stop him, he pressed down on the ring.

Daniel couldn't stop himself. He spun around in time to see the wall mist over, just as he saw John and both Ferrettis leap for it.

And then they vanished. The reality switched.

And Daniel was now alone with a madman.

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John felt his heart drop to his stomach as he watched Daniel being hauled up like a sack of flour. The older man protested, his grunts and angry sputters unheeded as the traitor went by him. The young rebel barely spared him a glance as he towed Daniel to the center of the chamber. This shouldn't be happening. He'd made a promise.

Nothing was going to happen to him.

John twisted around until he was on his back, keeping his ears tuned for the pair. Graham was particularly rough with Daniel and for a moment, John stopped to listen.

"What were you guys really doing coming back here? What was their plan, Doctor O'Neill?" Shaking Daniel by the throat, Simmons had a mad gleam in his eyes, the calm, soft-spoken composure eradicated.

Daniel glanced over to where they were but jerked his gaze elsewhere. "No plan. We...we were coming to see if...if there were more bracelets for everyone else."

Kawalsky's muffled voice protested as he saw the scene between the statues, his wordless commentary getting John more and more frantic.

"We were really just coming here to get the bracelets. They'll be expecting us back soon."

He could hear Daniel whispering, sounding frightened. John feverishly hoped it was only Daniel being a really good actor. Unbidden, he wondered if Dan had sounded like this when he was trapped alone on Ra's ship.

John was tempted to gnaw his arm off to get free.

"We...we were coming to see if there were more bracelets for everyone else. That's all."

He had to hurry. He didn't like Daniel's tone. Nor did he like how Kawalsky was sounding, his swearing audible despite the gag. A few other soldiers were beginning to rouse, backs stiffening as they too zeroed in on Daniel's plight. And he couldn't see! Not clearly, only the soldiers' reactions for his play by play.

John tucked in his knees close to his chest as Daniel had tried before and grunted as he worked to loop his tied hands through to the front. He thought he heard something pop, a white heat scorching through his nerves, but he forced himself to keep going. He could hear Kawalsky, both Ferrettis, everyone's breathing quickening, but he didn't know if it was because of what was happening out there or because of his frustratingly slow progress.

"You shouldn't have come."

John heard the insanity in Simmons' voice and could only imagine what the man was doing to Daniel. The archeologist gasped, his cry abruptly cut off. Wheezing, soft rustling sounds of struggling. He could have sworn he heard Dan calling his name, could hear his brother screaming as he must have done all alone in Ra's clutches, receiving every one of those mottled bruises that marred his flesh, suffering every scar that mapped his back.

And suddenly, John saw red.

"Mph muk in ick! Mof ou muff im!" he raged, yanking at his bonds, screaming in agony behind the rag crammed in his mouth as he finally got his arms in front of him. The blade dropped to the floor, but he didn't care. He roared, his voice sounding weak and pathetic as he tried to get Simmons to stop.

Kawalsky craned his neck to look between the statues, his own voice warped behind his muzzle as he shook his head at John, signaling him to calm down.

_Dan_, John thought anxiously as he furiously yanked at his ropes, uncaring as the coarse material scraped bloody at his wrists, yanking at the bracelet he wore. He had to get his brother out! He had to stop them from hurting him again!

Whap.

John stilled and found himself staring at Kawalsky's blazing eyes. The captain had crawled on his stomach to get to him and head butted him on the shoulder. John shook his head. What was he doing?

"Mo ay?" Kawalsky softly inquired.

John gulped, calming his breathing and nodded. The other captain quieted down considerably and gestured towards the discarded blade.

"Mmpf!"

Nodding, John squirmed, wiggling, pressing against Kawalsky's back as the soldier turned around to provide him support and sat up. Hands in front of him, he tugged his gag down with his fingers, gnawing immediately at the knot trapping his wrists. His eyes stayed on the rope, concentrating. He knew if he looked, he'd mess up again.

"Contact them. Make sure no one else comes through." Something like a body slammed against the DHD and a soft intake of breath made John pause. He gritted his teeth and went back to working on the knot.

"You don't want to do this."

There. His hands were free. John didn't have time to celebrate. He snatched the knife off the floor and began hacking furiously away at the ropes around his ankles.

Daniel was still trying to talk to Simmons. "You don't want to do this. Whatever they told you, it isn't true. You can't possibly want to ally with the—"

"What the hell?"

Shit! John felt the last fiber snap around his legs. He spun around to Kawalsky, slashing the knife upwards, catching the bonds around his friend's wrist and ripping them apart with one violent stroke. Kawalsky didn't say anything. He just grabbed the blade as John lurched to his feet, yanking off his gag to hang on his neck.

"Son of a—" John could see Simmons tossing the bandanna down, arm around Daniel's throat. Simmons spun around with his zat, sighting John.

"No!" Abruptly, Daniel and Simmons dropped out of sight.

"Daniel!" John veered away from the statues as he heard Ferretti, he couldn't tell which one, and one of the guards hollering as they were freed. He raced to where the two men were.

Head up, Daniel was shouting as he tried to hold Simmons down. "Get Jack! Open the—" His eyes widened with pain as a well placed elbow on his back sent him crashing to the ground.

Gun. John needed a gun. He whipped his head around frantically, sighting the pile by the DHD. As he went for them, he saw Daniel sprinting across the room after Simmons.

"Daniel! Don't!" Major Ferretti shouted as he pulled the last of his bonds free.

The wall snapped shut.

"Shit!" Grabbing a rifle, John stomped towards the wall only to see it mist over.

"He's changing the realities!" someone was shouting.

John gritted his teeth and raced for the wall. He could make it. He could.

And then, Daniel and Simmons vanished.

He skidded to a halt, gawking at the wall, at the new reality, in horror. No. Not again! Not again! He swallowed his shock and whirled around to the others.

"We need that reality back. And get the colonel here! _Now_!"

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Jack nearly leaped out of his boots when the inner track spun clockwise to lock on the first chevron. He twisted around, to tell the others to get ready when he realized there was no one left standing in the observation booth to hear him except for the two generals. Giving Hammond and Maybourne a curt nod, he bounded down the stairs, snagging his pack by the entrance as he went. The heavy weight didn't register with him as he looped arms through straps and hurried through the bulkhead doors just as the seventh chevron engaged.

"I'm getting the signal!"" the technician spoke into the microphone. "It's the Alpha team!"

Daniel's team, he thought as he halted. He grinned, relieved as the Stargate sparkled, hearing another technician confirming it was Daniel's team's signal—saying it was safe to come through. He waited for the wormhole to shut down so they could begin dialing the planet.

The event horizon stayed on.

Spinning around, Jack pointed to it. "What's going on?"

The technician shrugged helplessly. "I'm getting an incoming traveler!"

A dozen rifles and guns clicked in unison towards the Stargate. Jack gritted his teeth, waving Hansen and the others back.

Major Ferretti stumbled out of the Stargate, dropping to his knees, coughing just as the wormhole shut down behind him.

"What happened?" demanded Jack as he bound up the ramp and hauled the major to his feet. He looked at the idle Stargate apprehensively. "Ferretti, what happened? You guys were supposed to shut the gate down to let us go through to the other side!"

"Simmons," the major gasped as he staggered. He breathlessly shooed away the medics around him. He clawed Jack's arm, shaking it. "Your team...when Daniel went through...didn't believe whatever story you fed him. Shot Daniel with the zat—"

"What?" Jack practically bellowed, his grip automatically tightened to a vise.

Ferretti winced, signaling frantically with his hands it was okay. "He was only shot once with the zat. But Simmons got a whiff of something foul and took off. Daniel went after him.-"

"What?" Now it was Hansen's turn to bellow, sticking her head in between the pair. "Where?" Laser blue eyes skewered Ferretti.

Thrown off by the double glare, Ferretti stammered, "To the other reality. Simmons shut the portal down and switched it. I came to tell you. They're still there redialing."

Jack didn't wait for Ferretti to finish. He pulled him back, waving the others to the ramp. "Permission to go, sir!" he hollered to the standing generals.

The Stargate's inner track began to rotate.

"Chevron one locked!" the technician shouted back.

General Hammond read Jack's mind.

Jack gave his team a quick glance. "Teal'c, you and Ferretti take point. Give us five seconds, and we'll be right behind you." He gave Jolinar a nod. "Think it might be better if you stay behind at first. Knowing the Goa'ulds, if they're there when we are, your head would carry a pretty hefty price."

"Agreed," Jolinar said, but she eyed the Stargate, reluctant to remain behind.

"Carter, I want you and your...er...yourself to take our six. Wait for my signal. If you don't get it, shut the gate down. Don't go through."

The major's jaw dropped open. "Sir!"

Jack stuck out a hand. "No arguments. No more moving targets for him. Worst case scenario, you get the Tok'ra to fly over there, see what's left, salvage the situation. Seal the portal if it looks like Ra's going to come knocking." He narrowed his eyes at Carter, who was chewing her lower lip. "Is that clear?"

Carter didn't answer, her lip twisting under her teeth as she sought to think of a better alternative.

"Is that clear, Major?" Jack repeated intensely. He had no time for this. He wasn't giving out options like lunch meat.

"Yes, sir," she said reluctantly. Sam glanced over to her counterpart warily, surprised Hansen wasn't protesting.

"Anything else...sir?" Hansen said archly, folding her arms.

Sam winced. Then again...

"Seventh chevron locked!"

The embarkation room filled with light. Jack gave it a sparing glance as he loaded a clip into his rifle with a quick thrust with his palm.

"Yeah," he said shortly as he ran up the ramp after Teal'c and Ferretti. "Wish us luck." He didn't wait for a response and just leaped into the event horizon after counting the seconds.

"Good luck," Sam murmured when Hansen didn't reply. She stood there, mentally counting, blinking when she realized she could hear Hansen and Jolinar doing the same, marking off the seconds out loud.

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"Keep away!"

Daniel stood there, breathing heavily, staring at the gun pointed at him. He looked over his shoulder and gulped when he only saw his own ashen reflection staring back.

"Don't move, Doctor Jackson," the rebel snarled. "Stay where you are."

"We're only trying to help you," Daniel said softly, gaze following Simmons', stepping away from the DHD. He raised his tied hands, wishing now he'd had the sense to pick up a weapon. He felt naked standing there, bound and alone with a man he'd seen blushing in the labs. But this wasn't the same man.

This man was looking back at him with hate.

"You lied to me...you did come here to trap me, to stop me..."

"Please..." Daniel whispered. "Think of what you're doing."

"What I'm doing is helping you!"

Daniel winced, noting the red rimmed wide eyes glaring back at him. He also noticed the gun was shaking.

Was this how Jack saw me back then? Daniel swallowed as he took in the wild panicked gaze, the hands trembling like live wires.

"You don't understand how I feel about her..." Simmons rambled, whipping his gun left and right. "I love her."

Daniel shook his head. "No, you don't."

The gun stilled with an audible snap. Daniel took a step back, even though it would have been useless.

"What do you know about how I feel?" hissed Simmons.

"I know you think she's the world. I know you think you need her." Daniel gestured towards the mirrored wall. "I know she told you this was the best way and that you believe her."

"It is the best way. No more deaths. No more scrounging for food. No more burying bodies in what used to be children's parks. No more hiding." Gripping the sidearm tighter, Simmons swallowed audibly. He rasped, "You don't know what it's like in our reality. Always being afraid. Do you know how it feels to be constantly afraid? To be afraid of the dark and the daylight?"

Daniel gazed back steadily. "I know enough to understand if you feel any power for any moment, you would never want to be afraid ever again."

The gun shook again. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Daniel took a step, but stopped when the gun halted, aimed right for his face. He stopped himself from gulping nervously and cleared his throat. "I...I've tasted it before."

Cocking his head to the side, Simmons contemplated him.

Nausea churned in Daniel's stomach at the memory. "The sarcophagus."

The gun jerked higher. "What do you know about it?"

Daniel stopped himself from cringing at the weapon. "I had it for a few days. I know what it feels like." His Adam's apple bobbed. "I know it gives you power."

Simmons nodded minutely.

"Or...so you think."

Narrowing his eyes, Simmons came closer. "What are you talking about?"

Daniel suppressed a shudder, getting the overwhelming feeling of a panther creeping up on its oblivious prey. "You think you're powerful, you can do anything. The first taste of it, waking up inside it and you feel..." He stared at Simmons, eyes haunted. "Like you can do anything. Nothing can stop you."

_"No, you look, Jack! I have everything under control, okay? God, you never show me any respect! Your way didn't work. Now I'm handling it! All you have to do is hang in there!"_

Daniel clenched his hands together into a single fist. "I was caught under a cave-in and was—"

"Dying," interrupted Simmons. "I know. I caught a staff weapon full blast. I died." He lowered his gun a little. "It saved my life." He looked at Daniel curiously, understanding dawning and returning sanity into his eyes. "You, too, apparently. So you do understand. We need it...in order to live."

Daniel shook his head, stricken. "No...You don't."

_"Are you crazy? Are you trying to kill me?"_

_"No, but you're trying to kill me!"_

Daniel's throat closed up. He swallowed and swallowed again. He could still feel the flesh impacting his fist as he struck the guard and Doctor Frasier, charged with desperation, with the deluded feeling everyone was out to get him. No aliens. No booby traps making him go insane. He'd acted on his own with a hunger he denied.

"You think you need it. You think you can't live without it...but it's not true." Daniel tried to keep his voice steady but failed miserably. "It's a monster just like the Goa'uld. It changes you."

"I'm not changed." Simmons stuck out his chin, the gun back up again. "I'm still the same."

"Have you looked at yourself?" Waving towards the wall with his bound hands, Daniel kept his voice soft. "Have you?" He saw Simmons stare at the wall before he tore his gaze away.

"I know what you're trying to do." Both hands on the gun now, Simmons bared his teeth as he growled. He motioned towards the direction of the wall with a quick jerk of his chin. "You're trying to distract me. Tell me lies about her. It won't work. I'm going back."

_I'm going back._

Daniel stepped forward. He froze when a shot ricocheted near his right boot.

"I said stay where you are!"

Raising his bound hands, Daniel kept his voice soft. "Listen to me...I..." He found himself at a loss, pinned by Simmons' delirious gaze.

_"Look at you. I know what this is. I know what it's like. You can get through it..."_

Daniel remembered the broken words seeping through his confused thoughts in the dark storage room. He remembered the understanding in the voice that made him pull the gun back, the voice that was followed by a strong touch around his neck, pulling him in while taking the gun away before he could fire it on Jack or even at himself to end the agony.

How could he even begin to sound close to the lifeline Jack gave him then? What could he possibly say to a virtual stranger that he couldn't even begin to think about himself?

"Look at me," Daniel began quietly, his voice like water in the echoing chamber. "Please. Look at me."

Pained brown eyes settled on his face.

"I know it hurts...I know it's taking everything in your power to stand there and not fall to the floor..." Daniel took a deep breath. "I do know. You think you're dying, that you can't live without it. You can hear her voice, telling you everything you think is right, but it's not." He flinched as he saw the gun raised higher. He tried to ignore the pistol aimed for his head as he went on. "She has this...power, the nishta...it makes men do her bidding."

"You're l-lying."

Daniel caught the tremor in Simmons' voice. He patted his own chest with his tied wrists. "You hear her voice, right? You hear it before you can hear yourself think. Am I right?" Even though Simmons didn't reply, Daniel could see the arm holding the gun was shaking. "Don't you think it's strange? Didn't you suspect her before? Or hate her? Don't you wonder why suddenly you're so devoted to her? And suddenly everything she says makes sense to you?"

"I...I love her." Simmons' voice hardened. "I love her."

"But she doesn't love you."

Another shot pelted the floor inches from Daniel's left foot. Graham's trembling kept his aim off. "You're lying...lying..." The soldier was muttering like a mantra, blocking Daniel's persuasion. "Lying...I love her...you're lying..."

Daniel wondered if his heart would leap through his throat. He thought he could feel a hot score on his boot where the bullet had zipped by, which was ridiculous since it was so far off. But his left foot curled inside the footwear regardless. He kept his legs locked and stayed where he was. "I was there...on her ship...she tried to make me her pharaoh..."

_"Shall it be our Beloved? We could spend an eternity together. Do you not remember? The joys that we shared in one another's arms?"_

Daniel's stomach clenched, her voice ringing like carving knives in his head. "She would...she kept calling me her B-beloved...her Chosen..." He made a face at the name. "She—" Daniel stopped when he saw Simmons' gun shake even more. And knew.

"She called you that too, didn't she?" Daniel took a step closer. This time, Simmons didn't stop him. "She said you loved her, that she loved you. Something about eternity?"

"She...she love—"

Daniel shook his head. "No, she doesn't. Deep down, you know that. She did something to you, made you do what she wanted."

"N-no..." Red rimmed eyes stared at Daniel, panicked. "No..."

Extending his tied hands, Daniel kept his gaze on Simmons, made sure the young soldier could see him, see the understanding in his eyes. "Please...don't do this." He tried to convey his empathy through his eyes, his sight blurring, but he suspected it wasn't because of his still healing vision. He left his fingers as open as they could be while his wrists were tied, relaxed towards the confused man. Softly, Jackson pleaded, "Give me the gun...We can help you. I can help you."

"You're lying...you're lying!"

Daniel saw the hand bunch tighter around the gun and made the split second decision to leap towards the side. He heard the gun explode with another shot, its departure shrieking painfully in his ears. Daniel crashed into the DHD platform with a grunt.

The wall flickered on in front of them and revealed the empty chamber of another reality. Not home.

Daniel kicked out his legs as he felt Simmons standing over him, and the young soldier crashed. He slammed his hands on the bottom of the DHD and pressed on the coil. He gave a frantic glance to the wall.

Not his reality.

"Keep away from there!"

A grab at the back of his clothes, and Daniel gritted his teeth, giving it one more try before he was violently pulled away. He caught a glimpse of yet another reality as he was shoved down to the floor. Knees dug into his back, the gun pressing into his skull.

"Lying piece of garbage. None of you understand her!" Simmons' voice burned in Daniel's ears. "I should have just killed you back in the sub before I left! You never tasted a shit of what we went through there!"

Daniel flinched as the metal barrel dug deeper, threatening to crack through his skull. "Think about it!" he called desperately. "How did you just suddenly fall in love with her? It isn't love! She tricked you and got you hooked on the sarcophagus so badly that—"

"SHUT UP!" Simmons shrieked, slamming a fist against the back of Daniel's shoulders.

The archeologist scrunched up his eyes in pain as a dull throb burned through to his collarbone. His own bound hands were digging into his stomach, pinned by the heavy weight, and he could practically feel a bruise marking the back of his head.

_Jack...Any time now would be good_, he thought as he heard a click of the gun.

Something beeped.

Daniel felt the gun waver, no longer glued to his skull. He didn't dare raise his head though as he felt Simmons still on top of him, fumbling around for something.

It beeped again.

"See?" Simmons shoved a fist-sized marble in front of Daniel, its surface swirling like contained smoke. "That's her. She's come for me. I told you she loved me. She said she would come and bring me back!"

Hathor was here?

Daniel could feel his stomach churning. God, he wanted to throw up.

"Simmons," the soldier spoke to the marble, rising from Daniel. The archeologist gratefully rolled to his back, shuffling away until he was on the platform again.

"Don't," Simmons hissed, waving his gun like a pointer. Daniel raised his bound hands to show he wasn't moving. But he kept glancing back at the wall, hoping his friends would suddenly be revealed there. "My queen?" Simmons questioned.

_"Where are the rebels?"_ a voice boomed out of the device.

The two men froze.

It wasn't Hathor.

"What...what are you doing here?" Simmons breathed.

Jermak's voice came crystal clear to Daniel. Taking advantage of Graham's shock, he slowly raised his fingers to the coil close to his head. He tentatively gave it a push.

The wall shimmered.

_"I will be arriving there soon with my ship. Where are the rebels?"_

Simmons staggered back a step. "She said we were going to barricade the portal and keep them from returning."

_"We will,"_ Jermak spoke, voice suspiciously oily.

Daniel gave a snort, unable to stop himself.

Simmons raised his hand to strike him when Jermak demanded again.

_"Where are the rebels?"_

"They're still on the...the other side."

_"I will send my guards through the Chapa'ai—"_

"No!" Simmons shouted.

Daniel stared at the soldier as the young man paced, staring at the marble, his gun now hanging down from a slack hand.

Bringing the globe closer to his face, Simmons nervously licked his lips. "They do not know of my...deception yet. If your guards show, they will..." Simmons darted a look to Daniel. "They'll try to escape. I need more time to lure them here."

_"What of the re'klya?"_

Daniel tensed.

"Our queen said there were two who know our tongue and can find our secrets."

Simmons gave Daniel another look again. "Uh..."

_"Are there or are there not two of them?"_ the general roared. Daniel flinched. He silently looked at Simmons, shaking his head.

"No...no...I was mistaken, m-my lord."

_"Very well, then."_ Jermak sounded reluctant. His tone narrowed audibly. "I will be there soon."

The device chimed once and was quiet.

Simmons' hand dropped the marble, and the young soldier sat down on the floor, shocked.

"She said she was coming..."

"I'm sorry," Daniel murmured, pulling his hands down from the coil. "But she isn't..."

"She said she—"

"Please...you must believe me..." Daniel showed his tied wrists. "We can help you. She can't. She's not who you believe her to be."

"No...you're l-lying...I...I have to go back. I'm dying..." Simmons' anguished eyes looked over to Daniel. "I don't want to die..."

Daniel leaned forward. "You're not dying. You have to trust me on this. This hunger...this...n-need...you can beat this. I..." Daniel sat back. "I did," he finished softly. Daniel looked determinedly at Simmons. "It can be done."

Simmons shook his head, the hand holding the gun went up to his head. The soldier cradled his face as if it were heavy. "Can't...need it...I'll die if I don't..."

"No, you won't." Daniel shuffled closer again, steering for the gun. "I can help you..."

"She...she said she...but I loved..." Simmons didn't realize Daniel was close to him, shaking his head, mumbling incoherently. "God...what have I done..."

Daniel ached, seeing the minute tremors shaking the man in front of him. Despite his bonds, he cautiously touched Simmons' arm. "It's okay."

Like a spring, the touch brought Simmons to his feet. "No! Don't touch me!"

Daniel thought Simmons was going to pull the gun back to him as the weapon waved towards him, but the soldier staggered away, tripping, stumbling over rubble as he ran for the inner rooms.

"No! Stop!" Forgetting about the portal, Daniel struggled to his feet and went after him.

Daniel could hear Simmons screaming in denial, the sound of it ricocheting off the walls, bouncing inside Daniel's chest with empathy. The archeologist called out Simmons' name and received a bullet fired at him in response.

"Get away from me!"

Daniel caught a glimpse of a shadow flitting by the corner of his left eye, darting into an inner room that looked similar to the one he was translating in just days before. Daniel didn't hesitate. He followed him.

And came to a screeching halt at the gun pointed at him.

"Why did you come here?" Simmons hissed. "Go back where you belong and leave me alone!" The last of his control crumbled, and he was unstable, shaking like a tree against a strong wind.

"I know how you feel." Daniel stepped back. He could see the arm trembling and feared the gun would go off by itself. "You're confused...you feel guilty...but it wasn't you! You didn't do this! She made you-"

"No one made me!"

Daniel stopped.

Practically frothing at the mouth, eyes stark wide, Simmons shook with anger, with pain. "I did this all on my own. I did it for her! I thought I was doing it to help everyone. That it was for the best. I can't go back to them! They'll kill me!"

"No, they won't. They understand. They do."

The gun cocked, interrupting Daniel.

"I can't go back," Simmons whispered. "And now you're telling me I can't go back to _her_...God...I need it...but I can't go back."

"You can beat this." Daniel gestured towards himself, coming closer to Simmons until he was inches away from the gun. "I did."

"You had it only for days!" Simmons screamed. "I had it for months! Years! I can't go without it! Damn you, why can't you understand? There's no place I can go any more! It's all your fault!"

Daniel felt the gun jab at his forehead as Simmons' contorted face filled his vision. Startled, he backstepped. In his haste, he lost his balance and dropped to the floor. But his eyes were glued to the black hole at the end of the barrel.

"Years..." Simmons murmured as he clasped both hands on the gun once more. "Years. I can't go back to her. Can't go back to them." His eyes bored through Daniel's. "You..."

Daniel couldn't speak. He could only watch as Simmons took another step, gun primed and ready.


	42. Chapter 41

**CHAPTER FORTY ONE**

John didn't turn as he heard Teal'c, Ferretti and Jack arriving. He kept his eyes on the wall as Kawalsky frantically turned the coil.

"No, no...shit...no," Anderson was cursing, voicing John's frustration. "No...no...wait! That's it! That one!"

"Where's Daniel?" Jack demanded, giving the chamber a quick once over but not lowering his rifle. "Ferretti, put the signal through for Carter."

"Yes, sir."

"I asked you _where's Daniel_?" Jack grabbed John by the arm.

"Doctor Jackson went through to the other reality after Simmons," Captain Ferretti said as he came up to the wall, ready to go through.

Jack released John's arm, noting the captain wasn't saying a word, only clutching his weapon tightly, poised to run for it. "Okay, Captain. You, Major Ferretti, and Kawalsky come with me. Teal'c, at my count, go through and start firing if you see any snakes-"

"Sir!" Carter came through with a breathless gasp, Hansen at her heels. "Where's—"

"Over there!" Jack barked, more angry at himself than at Carter. He shot a burning glare at the wall. _I never should have agreed to this._ "Everyone get ready! On my count..."

Major Ferretti whipped around. "Anderson, Cowley! You two have our six. The rest of you guard this side. Make sure only friendlies come through!"

"Yes, sir!" the men chorused.

"One," Jack seethed, ignoring the activity behind him. He stepped up to the mirror, scanning furiously for Daniel and Simmons. No one was around. "Two. hree!"

The wall flashed and vanished the moment the soldiers stepped through.

Jack wasted no time. "Okay. Teal'c, you and Kawalsky search the—"

A shot rang out, stopping Jack in his tracks.

Everyone froze. The sound of it echoed throughout the entire chamber, fading away to an empty silence. Even the harsh breathing of his companions had gone mute.

"It came from the back," Hansen finally whispered, pulling out her sidearm.

Jack didn't reply. He just ran.

Jumping over statues, rubble, around the charred remains of the rovers they had left behind, Jack mentally calculated where the shot had come from, his rifle ready. He wanted to call out and try to get a response from Daniel. But he was afraid he wouldn't get one and would only draw more enemy fire than they could handle right now. Legs pumping, pounding the floor with numerous others echoing behind him, Jack reached the room he thought the shot came from and decided he had to know for sure.

"Daniel?" he spoke carefully as he pressed himself to the side of the door. In the corner of his eye, he could see the others ducking behind statues and corners as well. "Daniel? You in there? You okay?" He cautiously pulled out his extendible rod, angling the mirrored head towards the room.

"Jack."

Daniel's faint voice made Jack drop the tool, and he darted in, dropping to one knee, aiming for—

Daniel, who was crouched over Simmons' prone form.

"Daniel?" Jack asked again cautiously. The archeologist bowed over the body, gun on the floor, inches from Simmons' hand.

"I couldn't stop him." Daniel whispered. "He...I tried to tell him we could help him. He was in...He was in so much pain."

Carter and Teal'c rushed in. The major gasped softly. "Oh God." She composed herself and crouched by her friend, her hand on his back. "Daniel?" She began to untie his hands.

Anguished blue eyes peered up at her, then over her shoulder to Commander Hansen, who stood grimly by the doorway. "I'm sorry...I couldn't reach him."

"You did this?" Hansen asked quietly, nodding towards the gun on the floor. Jack whipped around, glaring at her.

Daniel looked sick. "No...He...he did it to himself."

"Damn," someone murmured in the back.

Hansen stared down emotionlessly at the dead soldier. "Then you did reach him," she said, causing Daniel to blink. "It was the best anyone could have done."

"She's right." Jack got up and reached out his hand, offering help. "You did your best."

Daniel shook his head, disgustedt good enough." He ignored the gesture and awkwardly rose to his feet, heading for the door. Silent soldiers parted, giving way, and he slipped away from Jack.

Jaw clenched, Jack went after him, leaving Hansen and her men to the task. "Daniel!"

The archeologist stopped at the center of the chamber, back toward Jack. "What?"

Jack studied the slumped shoulders, and his brow furrowed sadly. He wondered how many faces Daniel saw on the dead body. How many unsalvageable loved ones did his friend see? How many more faces would Daniel see before he finally stopped trying? Jack never thought he would find himself being sympathetic with the spy who might have been the one to lead the Goa'ulds to the rebels. But Daniel's distress was clear, painting a much more humane epitaph for Simmons, and Jack mourned the loss too, now.

"We can't save them all, Daniel," he said softly.

Daniel turned to look at him. He opened his mouth to respond when he spied John standing behind his friend. The captain was stone faced at Jack's words. Daniel shook his head sadly. "No...I guess we can't."

John spun on his heel and went back to the inner rooms.

Jack sighed, knowing Daniel's response was more for John and not really for himself. He went over to Daniel and frowned. The archeologist still had his contacts on and the colorless pupils were giving him the willies. "Uh, Daniel, do you mind?" The colonel pointed to his own eyes and made a face.

The archeologist blinked. "Huh? Oh! Sorry." Daniel reached for the contacts, removing them with a grimace of his own when Hansen's voice echoed from the chamber.

"Doctor Jackson." She came up behind Jack, eyes grim. "Did he say anything about Jermak or Hathor?"

Daniel massaged his temples, smiling gratefully at Teal'c, who discreetly placed a large hand on his left elbow for support. "Heard Jermak contacting him. He's coming here...with a ship."

"Crap," Kawalsky swore. He waved towards the other chamber. "He'll be alerted to what happened; the alarm will be out. No way we can just sneak onto a mining planet for a ship now."

Hansen scowled.

"There is already a ship coming this way," Teal'c pointed out.

"Yeah, like Jermak's gonna let us borrow his wheels to head to Earth as we planned," Hansen snorted. She sobered as she saw John and Major Ferretti carry out the body. Captain Ferretti and the others followed behind like a grim procession.

"Maybe he'll let Jolinar borrow it."

Everyone turned to Daniel. The archeologist shifted under the attention.

"Uh...she was working in Jermak's ship before...right?"

"You could say that," John said cautiously, giving Jack a look. "But her cover was blown when she got you guys out, wasn't it?"

Jack nodded, mouth a tight line as he remembered. "She had to come with us when the snakes were banging at the Stargate door."

Daniel's shoulders slumped. "Oh."

"Wait a second," Carter interrupted with a frown. "So they saw her helping you escape?"

Kawalsky shook his head, remembering. "No. She was showing us the way to the Stargate when they started attacking."

"In other words, they only knew she was _with_ you when you escaped?" Daniel asked carefully.

Jack gave Daniel a look. "What are you thinking?"

"Do you really want to know?" countered Daniel.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Not really, but do I have any other choice right now?"

Daniel waved at the chamber they were standing in. "Jermak only knows Jolinar was gone when we escaped his ship, right?"

"Right," Hansen said cautiously. "So?"

"So...we could say she was a hostage, couldn't we?"

Kawalsky grinned. "And have her go to lover boy and sneak us in the back?"

Jack watched Daniel's eyes dull. "Uh...yeah...something like that. Right, Daniel?"

Swallowing, Daniel managed a "Right."

"Wait. Jermak's a snake, but he isn't dumb," John cut in. "He's just going to believe us saying she was a hostage and let her beam up to the ship with us?"

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed. "He would be cautious and only believe someone he already knows is on his side."

"Who?" Hansen barked. "Aside from Jolinar and that's a major question if he'll swallow it, who else do we have?"

Daniel gazed down sadly at the body and turned away. "Simmons." He looked at Jack instead. "Jermak was expecting Simmons to have us here for him to recapture."

"Well, pardon me," Hansen said archly. "But he's sort of dead."

Jack scowled at Hansen's lack of tact as Daniel swallowed and murmured, "I know."

"Your Simmons is," Carter jumped in. She faced the colonel. "But not ours."

Jack paused. He looked down at the body and then at Daniel. "He's off planet. It'll be a rush."

Daniel nodded. "Judging by the way they were talking before, Jermak didn't sound like he trusted him a lot either."

"And he might not be able to pull it off in such a short time," John added.

Jack ran a hand through his hair, staring at the portal, lips a thin line as he gave it some thought. "Slim," he said.

"Very slim," echoed Daniel.

"Well, what do you propose we do then?" Hansen asked in a tone drier than the deserts. "Should we sit in your lovely abode and twiddle our thumbs until that forty-eight hour window is up for us?"

Jack fought back the instinct to give her a biting retort. He stared at the body, someone's jacket placed over the shattered head out of respect, his brows waggling as he worked over the idea. Finally, he spoke.

"Carter."

"Sir?"

"Contact base. Tell them to get our guy back from SG-11." The colonel looked over to Daniel once again.

"Slim," he repeated.

Daniel could only nod, watching as Sam darted across the other chamber, their Stargate already lighting.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

And here he thought he was glad to finally get out in the field.

Graham Simmons remembered gazing around the planet's bright floral surface, glad he was assigned to the team for the mission. Purely for scientific purposes, the lieutenant was sent along with SG-11 to run the new equipment sent over by the Pentagon. Apparently, SG-11 had a tendency to break things that cost more than a million dollars so he was more of a baby-sitter for some very expensive machinery. Nevertheless, he'd appreciated the change of scenery from drab lab walls to the varied greenery of P7R-891. It beat sitting all day dating the fertility vases SG-9 brought back last week.

That is, until Teal'c walked through the Stargate.

Suddenly, Simmons found himself being hustled back through the gate. He'd barely had a chance to adjust to the disorienting arrival at the base before a group of soldiers he didn't know, and who made him think he was seeing double a few times, were running up to him. Then it was back through the wormhole to this odd chamber of clutter, statues and burnt rovers.

That was where Colonel Jack O'Neill, two of them in fact, greeted him by dragging him to the other end of the room, both talking at once. Eventually, he got the whole story and the reason why he was there. He was going to pose as his own double? It was a bit fantastic to say the very least, and he wondered briefly if they were trying to pull a fast one on him. The lab techs had a habit of doing so, especially when Major Carter was around. But then he saw Anderson and Booker carrying a corpse to be put in a body bag. The jacket covering the face slipped off despite their care as they walked past him.

Suddenly, carbon dating fertility vases didn't sound so bad after all.

"So you want me to..." Simmons repeated and trailed off, squirming under the uncomfortable stares from dozens of soldiers, some in the familiar green fatigues, others in dark blue. The gathering of the soldiers had circled around him and the twin O'Neills like spectators in a gladiator sports arena.

Doctor Jackson was gingerly peeling the odd silver discs off his temples with a sigh of relief as he explained. "We need you to pose as your alternate self when Jermak arrives, convince him to come down to handle the...ah..."

"Prisoners," Major Carter jumped in.

Daniel smiled gratefully. "Right. Prisoners. So we can take him hostage and grab his ship." Daniel looked at him anxiously. "Is this all clear to you?"

"Uh..." Nervous, Simmons glanced over to Colonel O'Neill. His eyes drifted over to the double, Captain O'Neill.

Taking pity on the perplexed face, Major Ferretti pointed to the dark blue jumpsuit Graham now wore. "You see? You were a spy in their reality. We need your face to get us onto the Goa'uld's ship so we can...er..." The soldier looked around the crowd for help.

"Steal it?" Jack suggested.

Daniel wrinkled his nose. "Obtain the use of?"

"Pilfer?" Teal'c input.

Carter made a face. "Borrow?"

Hansen breathed out impatiently. "Look, the point of the matter is, you get Jermak or his men down here, and we'll do the rest, okay?"

Eyes darting from Carter to Hansen, Simmons reluctantly nodded. He was really beginning to wish he'd opted to stay in the labs instead. "Um...so what should I say?"

Major Carter gave him a gracious smile, and he flushed, wondering if he was appearing very green to her right now. He kept his eyes straight ahead when he heard the other Carter or should he say Hansen clear her throat.

"Well..." Carter looked around the room, to Jolinar. "You'll say you've got the rebels and need backup. All the Jaffa he can provide. Try and find out how many he has with him."

Jolinar dipped her head once, agreeing. "Jermak would not risk using Hathor's ship or his own. He would prefer it behind the dark side of the Tau'ri moon to guard the planet against rivals. So he would bring perhaps a smaller craft."

"Just how big is this...smaller craft?" Colonel O'Neill drawled, leaning against one of the strangest statues Graham had ever seen.

His double replied, and Simmons had to blink once. The voice was uncanny. Captain O'Neill folded his arms as he tilted his head back, calculating. "Probably almost two thirds of your standard Goa'uld battleship. Maybe holds about three dozen Jaffa or so?"

"There's nothing standard about it," Ferretti muttered. Simmons couldn't tell which one it was.

"No shit, Louis," Kawalsky agreed, shouldering his rifle as he looked at Simmons funny. "How are you taking all this, kid?"

Simmons had to blink again. _Kid?_ "Uh...fine...sir..." He rubbed at the curve where his shoulder and neck met. "Um...I think so..."

Major Ferretti rolled his eyes. "Colonel, you sure about this?" He waved at Graham. "No offense, Lieutenant, but you're not going to win any Emmy awards with that performance."

A rumble grew over their heads, and everyone looked up. Colonel O'Neill scowled at the cracks on the ceiling; the light shining through was fading. "Does it look like we have a choice now?"

"They're here..." Booker intoned.

Anderson grunted. "Book, you are so freaking cliché."

"What? They are!"

_Stay calm. Stay calm_, Simmons told himself. He must have been obvious though because Doctor Jackson gave him a sympathetic nod across the crowd.

The colonel wasn't looking. "Okay, Daniel, stay below Simmons and listen in to what he's saying. Feed the lieutenant enough lines to convince the snake." Colonel O'Neill looked around the crowd, his gaze falling on the Tok'ra. "And Jolinar? Guess you're going to have to play the damsel in distress when they come."

Jolinar stood up straighter in her borrowed flightsuit and nodded. "I can play a distressed female very well, Colonel. Jermak will believe I am a hostage. He has to." She opened her palms to reveal the globe Simmons was told he needed to communicate with the Goa'uld general. "You must convince him, Graham Simmons."

It began to beep as soon as it was dropped into Simmons' hands.

"Show time," the colonel muttered, and Simmons began to sweat.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Jermak eyed the coral swirls twisting around the shape of the planet. Odd, he had never heard of this place before. But the planet was lifeless, empty of vegetation and feasible lifeforms to capture with the exception of the Tau'ri. So he didn't give it another thought. Aside from what his queen had told him about some portal to another universe as she described it, unless it meant more slaves for the naquada mines, he had no interest in exhausting his resources. They could be put to better use in conquering the rest of Ra's territory once he was eliminated.

Tapping his finger on his chair, he shooed off the slave girl and her pitcher of wine. He was in no mood for her company at the present, gesturing her to keep quiet and sit by his feet instead. She was the only luxury he allowed himself to bring on this tight, cramped ship. He needed his battleship by the Tau'ri planet as show for Ra of his loyal vigilance. Scowling at the planet on his screen, he barked at his guards to be ready. He wanted to be sure he regained the re'klya and his kin before Ra arrived in less than a day.

"Jaffa! Kree nok shur!" Jermak gave an angry wave of his hand towards the screen. The guards were more than happy to comply with their lord, hurrying to change the image to contact the traitor Hathor had enticed with her nishta.

The screen flickered, the planet's picture wavering until it was superimposed with a man's face before it solidified completely.

"Tau'ri, where are the rebels now? Do they suspect anything?" Jermak demanded. He wasn't the sort to give greeting. Especially not to one of Hathor's love-stricken servants. He switched to the Tau'ri's language simply because he knew the Tau'ri were too dumb to try and understand his.

_"No, m-my lord...uh...they wait on the other s-side..."_

Jermak frowned at the nervous stammer. "Why are they not there with you?"

The Tau'ri Simmons hesitated, nervously wiping a hand across his upper lip. _"They are preparing to...to execute Jolinar first before coming."_

Sitting up straighter, Jermak's eyes flashed. "Jolinar? She was with them! Why are they planning her execution?"

_"T-they...uh..."_ Simmons looked away for a moment, and his image flickered. Jermak barked at his guards. The ship was apparently not in complete alignment with the Tau'ri below. _"They took her hostage, forced her to show them where the Stargate chamber was so they could escape. Now they wish to...uh...punish her for her crimes and for being your favorite consort."_

"Shel tak mo!" Jermak raged, his hand whipping out and sending his goblet crashing to the rich red carpet below his feet. His slave girl scampered away with a squeal. "How many are down there? Where is the _re'klya_?"

Simmons frowned for a moment, then jerked. _"Oh...he's here beside me."_

"I will send down my men!" Snapping his fingers at the slave, the girl was more than happy to escape his wrath, fleeing away from Jolinar's usual place by his feet. The Goa'uld general fumed, thinking of what his guards had said, Jolinar being with them, suggesting she was the traitor. He vowed to himself to make sure each and every one of them was punished after he pulled their larvae out.

_"Uh..."_ Simmons seemed distracted for some reason. _"H-how many do you have with you, my l-lord?"_

Jermak's eyes glowed once, then narrowed. "Why do you wish to know, Tau'ri?"

_"There are so many down here. I..."_ The human swallowed. _"I f-fear I can not capture them all."_

"I will send you all thirty of my guards," Jermak said as he looked over to his First Prime. "Sheo ha Jaffa tok nok." He instructed his man to only send down half that. He wasn't stupid. He wasn't about to send them all. "Be prepared for them to arrive now!"

Simmons' image dithered up and down._ "Y-yes, my lord. Um...over and out."_

The image vanished with a long beep, replaced immediately by the rotating coral colored planet.

The Goa'uld leaned back in his seat and growled under his breath. Kill his mate? He thought not.

"Soon, my dear," he murmured as he watched his men file out of his main chamber to go to the Stargate room to teleport down. "Soon we shall be reunited, and I will make them pay."

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

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"Um...well...he's...uh...coming..." Giving the globe back to Jolinar with shaky hands, Simmons made a face, glancing hesitantly at Colonel O'Neill. "H-how'd I do?"

_Over and out?_ Jack wondered if he banged his head on the wall right now, would he find everything was only a really bad dream? "Uh..." He exchanged a look with Daniel.

"You did great," Daniel hastened to reassure the young soldier, ignoring Hansen's snort. "I heard him in the background ordering only half of his men to come down. I guess he figured you wouldn't understand him."

Jack clapped Daniel soundly on the back. "Except he didn't know we've got our own linguist who can speak a dozen languages!" He gave a crooked grin to Daniel as the archeologist sighed, exasperated.

"Isn't it twenty?" John looked over to Daniel, puzzled. "Dan can speak twenty."

Daniel opened his mouth to say twenty-three but shrugged instead. "Um...yeah...sort of."

Hansen snapped, "Everyone to your places. Captain Ferretti, you have your assignment. Get ready to converge the moment the colonel's team comes in from the other reality. Kawalsky?"

The captain gave a grunt, his gaze glued to the dome above them.

"Get your team to the back, behind that rover. I want us to be able to surround them the second they're all here."

Colonel O'Neill looked mildly irritated. He looked like he was trying to speak as well. He coughed out loud, and Hansen gave him a glare. The exchange was amusing. Or would have been, if Simmons wasn't busy pissing in his pants. "Ferretti!"

"Sir!" the two chorused together, jumping as they did and gawking at each other.

Jack massaged his forehead. "Why me?" he muttered wearily. "_Major_ Ferretti!"

"Sir!"

"You get your team on the other side. Get ready to come through when you see the white of their eyes or red, whatever." Jack waited as the archeologist put on his contacts again, the blank stare back. He grimaced and snagged a corner of Daniel's sleeve. "You ready to play actor, Daniel?"

Nodding, Daniel absently fingered the devices he had on. "Um...yeah..."

Jack reached out and pulled the hood over Daniel's head. More to cover the devices and the eyes than to complete the disguise. The archeologist peered through the draping cloth, parting it with his hands to see better and nodded to Jack to show he was fine. Jack returned the gesture, clapped Daniel on the forearm and returned to business, his voice brisk. "Simmons, you're going to pretend to have him and Captain O'Neill under control. You get the guards to approach the wall. Ferretti, you see them near, you go right through." He looked over to Hansen. "You guys going to cover this side?"

The commander gave her people a cursory glance. Kawalsky and Captain Ferretti signaled they were ready, steadying their weapons. "We have your man covered, Colonel. Not to worry."

"Okay. Teal'c, you start firing as soon as you see we have all the guards down here. I don't want any of them to have a chance to call ole Jerky—"

"Jermak."

The colonel gave Daniel an exasperated look before continuing. "I don't want them to have a chance to call him with a warning." Over to John, Jack paused. "We do this in one good wave of fire, and we have our means to head up to the ship."

John peered up towards the ceiling and nodded grimly. "One shot."

The telltale whine of a teleport ring began.

"Okay, people, move it!" barked Hansen as she and her team went to the ruined rovers, ducking under rubble.

Jack gave Daniel a quick squeeze of the arm. He and Jolinar ran back to the other reality, the wall vanishing, then rematerializing behind them.

Teal'c narrowed his eyes at the noise, knowing it was any second now. Daniel nodded to him, extending his hands. The Jaffa clasped a hand over the double fist and gently wrapped a rope around the wrist, making a very loose knot. Carter was doing the same for John O'Neill. When Teal'c was done, the image was perfect. Daniel was bound, head bowed as if too weary to fight any more. It made Teal'c's palm itch despite the act being only for show. His belly also stirred uneasily like a bad omen. It was the kind of sign that made him order his men to halt and reassess the situation when he was First Prime. But time was short so he only dropped a hand on Daniel's shoulder, surprising the archeologist and then slipped into the darkest corner of the chamber, his staff weapon ready.

"Watch yourself, guys," Sam murmured as she too went to the back with Teal'c, ready for the ambush.

Daniel didn't speak, but he nodded, keeping his gaze towards the ceiling. He did look back at Simmons, who was rocking on his heels, nervously fiddling with the zat that had literally been slapped down in his hands.

"Here we go," he mumbled and knelt down on the floor. John did the same, shuffling over until he was shoulder to shoulder with him. The captain took a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh.

"Watch yourself, Danny," John murmured, not catching Daniel's startled look.

Within the folds of his cloak, he gave John a worried glance, then one to Simmons. The captain was tense, too tense, and Daniel was beginning to wish Jack was the one over here. But he looked over to the mirror, at his own face and had a feeling Jack was staring right across to him, keeping guard. It calmed his hammering heart considerably, and Daniel rounded his shoulders back. The three watched as a set of rings stacked up, the blue beam shining down to bring the first ten guards to the chamber.

Daniel bit his lower lip, face hidden inside the hood. Jermak had told his men only half. But had the Goa'uld told Simmons the truth? Could they overpower that many on the ship?

The rings fled, leaving the guards behind. The First Prime, his hawk helmet tilting its head at the trio, paused before approaching them.

Daniel kept his head down as he heard the head Jaffa only grunt to acknowledge Simmons' presence before snatching a good amount of Daniel's cloak and tugging at it until he was shakily on his feet.

"_Re'klya_," the Jaffa hissed.

Daniel closed his eyes. The familiar sounds of Jaffa surrounding him made his heart pound as he fought to remain calm enough to keep an ear out for the young soldier standing by him. Why did he get the overwhelming feeling the nightmare was starting all over again?

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Teal'c watched as the first set of Jaffa beamed down, encircling Daniel Jackson and Lieutenant Simmons in an instant. Ten. He only counted ten. Jermak said he was sending down half his army. Where were the rest?

His fist bunched around the staff weapon he held in his hands. Hidden in the shadows at the far corner, obscured by surrounding statues, Teal'c had to fight the instinct to surge forward when he saw the First Prime roughly yank Daniel Jackson to his feet. Another one jerked John O'Neill up, pulling his arms back as the soldier cursed them.

A soft shuffle below him and Teal'c looked down. Major Carter was watching as well, grim faced, her own hands curling around her rifle. He knew she was fighting the urge to leap in to attack.

"Jaffa net tok loow!" the First Prime ordered, spreading his guards around the perimeter of the wall. Helmets down, the Jaffa peered at the reflective wall curiously.

Teal'c knew O'Neill was on the other side, watching their side of the wall, seeing what went on. There was no doubt in his mind that the colonel was viewing the scene with great trepidation. Teal'c scowled as the guards tilted back Daniel Jackson's head, snorting laughter as they sneered, "_Re'klya_", then dropped him back down on the floor unceremoniously. John O'Neill protested, lunging forward, shouting in both Goa'uld and in English to leave his brother alone. But the guards just laughed again, shoving the captain down as well. The Jaffas were all ignoring Simmons, who at this point, was just standing there, inching closer to Daniel.

Another shuffle and Teal'c looked down and caught Major Carter's frown. They both knew Simmons was probably concerned about the archeologist, but to display such concern might alert the guards.

Daniel Jackson abruptly coughed out loud, hands whipping out as if to strike Simmons. "Get away from me! Traitor! Shova ka!"

Teal'c nodded approvingly. Sure enough, Simmons remembered and backed away.

"_Re'klya_ shum tel nol," one of the guards commented, and the others laughed.

Carter looked up to Teal'c for a translation. He shook his head. A comment. No threat.

"Kree hak thru mel sey!" Another guard pointed to the platform, motioning towards the statue.

Sam tensed. She couldn't understand what they were saying, but judging by the way Daniel stiffened, the guards were going to activate the portal. She gave a quick count. Still only ten. Were more coming? She raised her rifle, wondering if they should surge forward now when Teal'c raised a hand in front of her face, stopping her. Looking up, she saw Teal'c give a single shake of his head.

They had to wait.

Her hands curled so tightly around her weapon they actually hurt.

"Shanta! Jaffa no mel kree!" One of the guards stepped on the platform, and the wall cleared into the image of O'Neill and Jolinar in the center of the room. They looked like they were struggling, a line of guards with their backs turned to the wall as if oblivious to the other side.

The First Prime growled, seeing Jermak's consort in what appeared to be grave danger. He yanked Daniel up to his feet. "_Re'klya_! No lek huio shou?"

Sam clenched her teeth, wondering how the colonel could keep on in his role, ignoring the Jaffa who had Daniel in his grip.

Daniel, in the meantime, said nothing, turning his head away. She caught the calm expression emanating from within his hood, and she nodded.

"Lek huio Shou ja kree!" The First Prime grew impatient.

"Neet..." Daniel said softly as if weak. "No...they can't see us. Hum iur neet huio."

The First Prime grunted. He didn't sound like he believed him. Dragging Daniel, waving a hand at Simmons to tell him to stay where he was, the head Jaffa brought Daniel closer to the wall. "Shu cru mak..._re'klya_."

Sam caught the soft growl Teal'c made and blinked in surprise. What? What was going on? She hated trying to guess by body language.

Daniel stumbled as he was thrown down to his knees, inches off the wall, in clear view of the other side. But Sam could see the colonel still going on, tying Jolinar's wrists now, shouting something to the other soldiers as if blind to what was happening.

"They can't see us. Hum iur neet huio," Daniel said again. She could see him flinch as the sound of a zat gun unfolding was heard.

"Son of a bitch! Don't you hurt him!" John leaped to his feet, rushing to the guard. He got slammed down in the stomach by an elbow from another guard. The captain crashed down with a groan.

The First Prime pressed a button, unfolding his helmet. The action revealed a shaven head, dark coal like eyes pressed into tight tanned skin and a small dark smile.

"Shova," he just said to John, showing teeth. Still looking at the captain, the First Prime's smile widened as he fired.

The bolt struck Daniel in the back. Without a sound, Daniel crumpled to the floor in a mess of cloak spilling around him like a shroud.

"No!" John struggled, getting a staff weapon jabbed in his chest. "You—"

One harder slam to the captain's chest, and he fell silent, tumbling like a huge redwood. Simmons backed up, eyes wide. The guards paid no mind to him, though.

Sam watched as the zat gun aimed for Daniel again. The head Jaffa stared at the wall with his challenge. She started to rise to her feet. This was "screwy" as the colonel put it. She had to stop him!

Teal'c grabbed her by the shoulder as she rose halfway to her knees. Angrily, she shot her head up, silently demanding why. Teal'c shook his head again, but his jaw was set. He didn't like it either, but they had to be sure that was all the guards there were. Reluctantly, she dropped to her knees again, but she raised her rifle towards the First Prime. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Teal'c do the same with his staff weapon.

The colonel, on the other side, was still role playing, but she wondered if he wasn't just as tempted to scrub the mission and rush here instead.

The room fell into a tense silence with nothing but the sound of a vibration from the zat and the shuffling of Jaffas' feet as they wait for their leader to decide what to do. They watched the wall for any reaction, like a large television screen with the volume turned down. Sam could feel a trickle of sweat actually going down her face, into her collar, but made no move to wipe it off, fearing her actions would tip the scales and make the guard fire again on her friend's body. Irrational thinking, something on any given day she would have disapproved of, but she couldn't think about that as she waited for what seemed to be eternity.

And the zat gun lowered. The First Prime was satisfied. He nodded curtly at his man to step down from the platform. The wall flickered as soon as the guard did and returned to the reflections of the Jaffas dragging Daniel back over to where John and Graham were.

Sagging, shoulder bumping briefly against Teal'c's knees, Sam's lips formed an O as she breathed, relieved. She could see Daniel stirring, head lifting as John groaned. The captain's head whipped up, immediately finding Daniel's. She could hear a soft whisper, probably an inquiry, and the hooded head bobbed once.

"Shova nok she...Neteru Jermak shama chok," the First Prime commented, giving Daniel a little kick the archeologist failed to avoid.

"Cre no chop ka!" John barked back. "Cak tel nok Jaffa! Shem bok! Sher bok!"

He must have said something wrong because the head Jaffa growled, the zat gun now aimed for him. The captain stared defiantly at him, burning gaze daring him to shoot.

_What are you doing?_ Sam thought as she watched the captain curse the Jaffa again in perfect Goa'uld, infuriating the First Prime further. With a growl, the Jaffa took aim.

"No, stop!" Daniel got up on his knees, ramming his shoulder against the Jaffa's legs

Sam would have groaned out loud if she weren't worried it would blow her cover. She could see Teal'c's knees visibly lock out of the corner of her eye.

"Nel crot cha!" The Jaffa whipped the zat back towards Daniel.

"Don't." Getting up, kneeling yet his upper torso told of a posture bristling tall, John narrowed his eyes. "Don't."

Daniel's hood slipped off from his earlier actions, and she could see piercing blue eyes staring back at the guard, his _re'klya_ devices glinting like gems. Suddenly it occurred to Sam that the contacts he'd worn before must have been knocked out when he was tossed down by the wall. Fervently, she hoped the guard didn't notice since obviously Daniel didn't realize it himself.

"Stop!" Simmons blurted, stepping forward. A guard grabbed his arm and a few murmured in surprise.

Teal'c locked his jaw. Lieutenant Simmons was too quick to try and help his comrades. A gesture usually noteworthy but dangerous right now.

"I don't want your help, Shova!" barked Daniel, whipping his head to give Simmons a warning. Simmons' eyes locked with Daniel and widened when he saw the contacts were gone.

"Shit."

Teal'c arched an eyebrow. He barely heard the remark, but the frustration rang out clear. He silently agreed.

The First Prime noticed. "Chet cha?" He came within an inch of where Daniel knelt. The Jaffa's eyes narrowed suspiciously as he looked down on the archeologist. "Shem nok tol, _re'klya_?" He began to stoop down to grab Daniel for a closer look.

Something beeped.

The Jaffas surrounding them stiffened in attention as the First Prime pulled out a globe and spoke into it. He nodded once, murmuring something and soon enough, the telltale whine of teleport rings began once more.

Stacked one by one, appearing out of nowhere, the rings hummed with energy as they accepted the beam cascading down to the center, depositing ten more guards to the chamber.

The First Prime gave Daniel a quick glance, the archeologist now leaning against John, shoulder to shoulder with his head bowed, and gave a disgusted snort. The Jaffa backed away and spoke with his men. With a few sharp words, the command clear no matter what language he spoke, the rest of his men nodded, the helmets zipping over their heads until it looked like a flock of hawks spreading out to line the wall.

"Tau'ri kree!"

From Sam's angle, she could see John poke an elbow on Simmons' knee to tell him the command was for him. Simmons blinked as the guard restraining him let go.

"Kree hak thru mel sey!" the First Prime barked, waving lazily at the platform. "Mel sey!"

Simmons blinked at him once, then turned to stare blankly at the platform.

Sam and Teal'c both watched as the soldier finally understood and nodded. Simmons gave the Jaffa closest to him a wary look before weaving around Daniel and John. To his benefit, he didn't look at them again as he headed for the platform.

_Here we go_, Sam thought, tensing, back rigid as she watched the guards clutch their staff weapons tighter and face the reflective wall. Simmons paused, one foot up over the platform before he realized it would look suspicious if he stalled and stepped up to the coverstone.

"Sha kree..." the First Prime warned his men as they stood there, watching the mists waver and swirl, fading their reflections away and solidifying to-

A line of soldiers with their rifles in their hands.

All looking right at them.

One of the Jaffa started to shout. "Chak kree—"

"Now!" John hollered, pushing Daniel down with his shoulder, tumbling over to shield him. "Now!"

The line of Jaffa instinctively took a step back from the soldiers' grim stares at the wall. As Sam leaped out of her hiding place, sensing rather than seeing Teal'c do the same, she caught Colonel O'Neill sticking out his middle finger at them from the other side, scowling at the Jaffa, then opening fire.

The bullets tore through the wall, the portal snapped away its solid illusion and combined both rooms. The Jaffa unfortunate enough to be standing there, twitched, some taking more steps back, but many caught the bullets point blank as soldiers crossed over from the other reality, firing nonstop.

"Fire!" Hansen emerged from the ruined rovers, Kawalsky and the rest of the men shouting in a unified roar as they rushed out. Some of the Jaffa turned around just in time to catch their weapon fire. One by one, they began to fall.

"Jaffa tol mak Jermak kree!" The First Prime backed away, firing his staff weapon one handed as he dug out his globe. "Hok Jer—"

Daniel slipped out from under John's protection and slammed into the First Prime.

The globe tumbled out of the Jaffa's hand, rolling away.

"Sho tak _re'klya_!" The First Prime bellowed angrily, a large gloved fist wrapping around the pale throat, a fist rising to strike Daniel.

Daniel flinched, unable to get away, hands that slipped out of Teal'c's loose bonds were unable to pull the Jaffa's back.

"I don't think so," a cold voice over them said.

The First Prime turned his head, a rifle butt smashing into his face as he did.

Daniel dropped abruptly to the ground, wheezing, eyes tearing from the chokehold, focusing as he saw Jack, or was it John, smashing down his rifle again over the guard.

"That was for zapping my linguist," Jack or John snarled before delivering one last blow.

Daniel smiled. Jack. He breathed out a sigh. "Jack, you—"

"Watch it!" Jack suddenly jumped on top of Daniel. The archeologist yelped as he felt the colonel's body colliding with his before he heard a hail of staff weapon fire zipping over their bodies. The short rapid return fire of their projectile weapons responded. Everything sounded endless. Ringing, echoing, thundering constantly. Daniel felt Jack dragging him without apology until another pair of arms looped under his shoulders and pulled him behind something.

And then, it was silent.

"Give me a count!" Jack was hollering inches from Daniel's ear.

Hansen was heard yanking out her clip, dropping it to the ground with a loud clang. "Kawalsky! Ferretti! I want a body count pronto!"

"Three over here!" Anderson shouted.

Major Ferretti gave a grunt. "Two here."

"I got four here!"

"One here, Commander!"

"I have four here as well, Colonel!"

"Three here, ma'am!"

"There are three here, O'Neill."

Daniel felt himself being sat up, a hand running over his body. He rubbed his eyes, coughed once and saw two Jacks and Jolinar wavering in front of him.

He groaned. "Please tell me I don't have a concussion."

The two Jacks looked at each other. "Huh?"

"You're not seeing double, Daniel." The Jack to the left looked annoyed. He grabbed Daniel's wrist and did a quick check. He nodded to the other, which Daniel determined to be John.

"Where's Graham? He was over by the DHD, Jack..." Daniel craned to see over the hovering O'Neills.

"Damn it, Daniel. Hold still while we check you out. Carter! You got the lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir!"

Daniel raised his head higher and saw Sam rising from behind the DHD, apparently having tackled Simmons safely to the ground. The young soldier, with the brightest red face Daniel had ever seen him wear, was getting up, mumbling his thanks in a dazed voice. The archeologist smiled, spying the hand Sam had draped over the soldier protectively before finally pulling away to get to Daniel.

_I was right_, he thought, biting back a grin unsuccessfully. _He does have a cru—_

"What's so funny?" Jack asked, letting go of Daniel's wrist. He snapped his fingers at the archeologist. "Hey...hey!" When he got Daniel's attention, he peered at the eyes, noting the even pupils. "You all right?"

"Fine," Daniel managed, getting up shakily. "Took you long enough."

Jack rolled his eyes. "I wasn't playing Tiddley Winks, you know." He looked over to John and gave him a curt nod. "Nice performance."

John shrugged. He cast his gaze to the ground and darkened. "That's all of them?"

Wiping her brow with a handkerchief, Hansen came over to the growing group. "We've got twenty. Two of the sets of armor are no good though. The others can pass first inspection, but if they check more closely, our covers will be blown."

"Hopefully we won't be close enough for them to check," Jack muttered, getting agreeing nods all around.

"Commander," Captain Ferretti came up breathlessly. "We're ready. What are your orders?"

Hansen counted her men, eyes gleaming with approval when she saw she had as many with her as when she first got here. "Next, we—" She paused and arched an eyebrow towards Jack.

Jack stood there, pretending to twiddle his thumbs. "Who me? I just work here. Don't mind me."

Sticking out her lower lip, Hansen took a deep breath and said in a careful tone. "Colonel O'Neill."

"Yees?" drawled Jack, waggling his eyebrows at her.

The commander gave him another glare. "May I ask what your next plans are?" She gritted her teeth as she added, "Please."

Jack grinned, looking wolfish as he eyed the taller men in the group. "Well, let's see...Who here wears a size 38 in Goa'uld armor?"


	43. Chapter 42

**CHAPTER FORTY TWO**

Jermak rubbed his hands together, letting the slave girl pop a small bite of fruit into his mouth. He didn't give the girl a smile though. It didn't pay to show preference with lowly slaves. He smiled to himself, though, at the thought of the return of his favorite.

The screen shimmered as it chimed once.

"Sha kree," he commanded, and the screen solidified. He watched as the image clarified itself into exotic tanned features and full lips curving at the sight of him.

"Jolinar," he breathed. He waved a hand at the slave girl, dismissing her.

_"My lord,"_ she said humbly in Goa'uld. _"I give you my eternal gratitude for my rescue."_

Smugly, Jermak leaned back on his throne. "Then the Tau'ri spy was successful?"

_"Yes, he has captured all of the rebels and the re'klya in your name, my lord."_ Jolinar's eyes flashed once with joy. _"May we be allowed to return to your side?"_

Jermak stroked his own cheek with a gloved finger. "Of course, my pet. Of course. Tell the Tau'ri spy to bring the rest of the prisoners to the chambers. You come to me at once."

_"Ah, my lord."_ Jolinar bowed deeply, and the screen dulled, blanking out.

Chuckling, Jermak was overwhelmingly pleased. He could feel the craft rumble as the teleport rings activated, telling him she was returning, along with the _re'klya_ and the rebels. Soon. Soon he would trap Ra with the bait, and he would rule the system with Jolinar at his feet, Hathor at his back, thinking she held the real power.

"Madness," he murmured, remembering how she had demanded the re'klya be returned to her royal chambers at once. Insanity had bordered the glow of her eyes since the day the re'klya had escaped her grasp. "Madness," he repeated. His queen had been useful in the beginning, but now, she was no better than a Jaffa with her almost human attachment to the weak marked Tau'ri.

"My lord Jermak." A Jaffa entered his chamber and bowed deeply. "Jolinar returns."

"My lord!" Jolinar swept in, a brown cloak over a hideous blue jumpsuit, ignoring the guard.

Jermak opened his arms, beckoning. "Welcome, my pet. Come. Come! Return to my side." He looked over to his guard and sniffed with disdain. "Leave us."

The guard bowed, slipping back out to the corridors.

Dropping to her knees, Jolinar bowed reverently. "My lord. Thank you for my rescue. I had thought I would surely perish under the Tau'ri's hands and be traveling the river Styx by now."

He sat there, motioning to her that she should stand and watched as she crossed over and slid onto his lap. "There, there," he cooed. "Would I ever leave my most valued possession to such weak minded fools? Tell me, who harmed you? I will disembowel him personally before your eyes."

Jolinar leaned closer to his ear, suddenly shy. Amused, Jermak tilted his head towards her.

"My lord," she whispered, a hand stroking his face. "The person who harmed me...was you."

Before he could react, she leaped off his lap, a zat gun whipping out from under her cloak. The Goa'uld roared, outraged, hand device up towards her. But the blue bolt of electricity tangled around his limbs. His eyes flashed, his voice garbled, and he dropped to the floor off his throne.

"Shen tol!" The guard outside rushed in when he heard the noise. "Shen—"

A bolt of lightning from behind got the guard in the back. Jolinar watched with little emotion as the Jaffa dropped just as another hawk-headed guard entered.

The Tok'ra looked at the Jaffa, arching an eyebrow before slowly lowering her zat.

"Geez...I never liked these things!" a muffled voice complained out of the armor. The helmet retracted, showing John's flushed face. He looked down at the guard with a scowl. Then over to Jermak, he nodded towards the senseless general. "Still alive?"

"Yes." Walking away from the Goa'uld general with open distaste, Jolinar tucked the zat away into her jumpsuit. "We may need his knowledge to get into the Alpha base." She frowned when she realized it was only John. "Where are the others?"

"They went to search the rest of the ship and find the other guards. I—" John perked up at a sound, spinning around with his zat as two more guards came in.

"Wait! Wait!" The Jaffa to the left waved his hand frantically, running in place at the sight of the zat, head bobbing erratically. "Goddamn it! It's me! Me! Put that damn thing down!"

John lowered his weapon as he saw the Jaffa to the right already activating the helmet, letting it pull away from his face. Teal'c's stoic visage emerged from the headgear. Daniel popped his head in, zeroing in on the two.

"Teal'c! Daniel! For crying out loud, how the hell do you—" Jack's muffled voice was clearly angry as he spun around, hand to the back, trying to find the button. The hawk head comically spun round and round like a dog chasing its tail.

"Uh...hold on," Daniel started, trying to help Jack without getting slapped in the face by the colonel's floundering. "Hold still...ow..." He ducked another hand.

John and Jolinar looked at each other with matching arched eyebrows.

"God damn, stinkin'—Teal'c!"

The Jaffa silently stepped in between Daniel and Jack. Calmly, he pressed a button just under the carved relief of feathers around the neck and stepped back.

The helmet whirred, folding back to reveal a very annoyed Jack O'Neill.

"Better?" John asked archly.

Jack only glared.

"Colonel!" Sam came in, nodding to the outside. "Place is secured, sir. Major Ferretti and his team have the remaining guards in their own holding cells."

Jack nodded, making a face at his own costume. When he looked up, he saw John's scowl. And he understood. Neither one of them felt okay about wearing the armor of their enemy. Jack couldn't wait to peel the filthy thing off his body.

"What now?" Daniel asked, looking from Jack to the others.

"Now," Jack said grimly, "we get the rest of the gang here and head for Earth."

John's face grew darker. They were going home soon.

He didn't know whether to be glad or not.

SG1SG1SG1

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Maybourne stopped himself from entering the briefing room when he heard Doctor Frasier.

"You should be resting."

"I'm always resting." Dan's weary voice responded without the usual resolve he'd been accustomed to hearing since he first met the young man back on the icy base.

Sighing mentally, Maybourne peered around the edge of the doorway and saw the pair seated in front of the observation window, Dan in a wheelchair, a blanket draped over his knees, IV tubing around his arm. Maybourne watched Doctor Frasier with her eerie resemblance to Hathor, drape a lab coat over Dan's shoulders. He winced as he saw the scholar flinch at the unexpected touch, the coat fluttering to the floor.

"Sorry," Dan said faintly as Frasier placed it over his shoulders again. "Look, you shouldn't be catering to me. Aren't there patients who can be saved for you to tend to instead?"

Maybourne grimaced the same time Frasier did.

"Thought I would wait with you for their return."

"They'll be okay," whispered Dan. "I mean...it hasn't been that long, right? It's only been two hours, right?"

_Three_, the general thought to himself, his gut twisting. _Three._

"They'll be back soon."

Dan sighed, rubbing his face with his hands, leaving them there for a moment. "Hope John isn't taking stupid chances."

Maybourne frowned.

"I'm sure he isn't."

Dan leaned forward, forehead pressed against the viewing window. "Damn it...why aren't they back yet? What if something went wrong? God..."

"I'm sure they're okay," Frasier soothed. "You just have to wait—"

"I hate waiting!" Dan abruptly pushed away from the glass, his chair rolling away a few inches with the push. "I just..." He dropped his head into his hands. "Just want this to be over with already..."

"Do you need any—"

"No," Dan said sarcastically. "I don't need any rest. I don't need any morphine. I don't need anything! Just...just stop asking me, okay? Please."

Maybourne was about to go in when the window the two were standing in front of, flashed faint red spots.

"Incoming traveler!"

"They're back," Frasier said.

Dan nodded. He got up shakily from the wheelchair and stepped away from it. "Where?"

Maybourne watched as she touched the scholar's hand. "Over here," she murmured and guided him towards the doorway. She paused when she saw Maybourne.

The general saw regret, sorrow, and a touch of guilt in the doctor's eyes. And suddenly, he found himself no longer making comparisons. The Goa'uld queen he saw presiding over executions in the name of Ra didn't exist in the doctor. Not here. Not in her. So he nodded curtly, stepped aside and let them through without saying a word. Watching the slumped posture straightening, Dan raising a hand to wipe his mouth of the telltale signs of weakness, General Harry Maybourne found himself again wishing he could kill the Goa'ulds with his bare hands.

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General Hammond was down by the ramp before the sixth chevron locked. Grimly watching the event horizon settle down to a flat vertical pool, he waited along with everyone else as the technician verified it was SG-1.

Major Sam Carter came stumbling out of the wormhole.

"All clear, sir!" she called.

Hammond smiled. It meant they were able to stop the rebel Simmons in time.

Now Hansen came over. A very green looking Lieutenant Simmons came stumbling through. Then Doctor Jackson, then Colonel O'Neill.

More and more soldiers came tumbling out with exclamations, dropping their loads of what appeared to be armor down on the floor.

"Wormhole disengaged," the technician spoke into the mike just as the Stargate shut down.

Hammond frowned. There were a few still missing.

"Colonel?" the general inquired as he realized a few soldiers from the original rescue team were not present. "Where's Captain O'Neill? Where's Captain Kawalsky and Anderson?"

Daniel pulled down his cloak, peeling the devices off his temples with a grimace. "They stayed behind with the ship, sir."

"Ship?" Baffled, Hammond turned to Jack for an answer.

"We got a ship, sir," Jack said as he motioned towards the armor the others were bringing with them. "And a new plan."

Looking behind Jack and staring at a slightly flushed Simmons, Jolinar carrying what looked like a beaded dress in her hands, General Hammond nodded.

"Well then, you'd better start talking, Colonel."

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Daniel resisted flinching as Doctor Frasier pressed her fingers against his jaw, tipping his head back to check his neck.

"Hm...not much bruising...should be okay." She pulled out her penlight and leaned closer, her face inches from him. She caught the jump Daniel made and pulled back.

"Sorry," he mumbled, sitting still so she could check his eyes.

Frasier paused before approaching again. Keeping her voice casual, she asked, "Sam mentioned they hit you with a zat bolt?"

"Uh...yeah..."

"Still feel a bit lightheaded?"

Daniel spied Dan sitting on the other gurney, head bowed as he let the nurses apply the morphine shot. He gulped. "No..."

"Your eyesight is improving, judging from the tests. Any blurriness?"

"Um...not recently." Daniel squirmed under the rapid fire questions.

"How about your motor abilities?"

"I can still drive," Daniel joked weakly.

Dan gave a snort from where he sat. "Oh...that was bad." He winced at the needle prick. "Real corny."

Janet rolled her eyes. She grabbed for Daniel's arm to test his reflexes. Caught off guard, Daniel felt only Hathor's touch, gripping him possessively. He reacted.

"No!" Jerking back until he realized it was only the gurney he was sitting on, not the cold, vibrating floor of a Goa'uld ship, Daniel lowered the arms he'd raised to shield himself. He flushed, realizing the nurses were all staring. "Um...sorry...I...was…daydreaming..."

Janet gave a tight, little smile. "It's okay. I understand, Daniel. Would you prefer someone else help you?"

Daniel got off the gurney. "No, no. I should be heading back to the briefing room. We have to leave very soon anyway. We...uh...we just came back to get what we need."

Gingerly, Dan lowered himself off the bed as well. "Well, can you give me a ride up there, too?" He shook off the nurse's offer of help and painstakingly sat down in the wheelchair.

Pausing to look at Janet, Daniel managed a "Sure". He started to reach for the wheelchair, then stopped.

Janet frowned. "Daniel?"

"It isn't you," Daniel explained as he wrapped his fingers around both handles of the chair. Dan said nothing as he was wheeled out. "It's not. I just...it's me..." He gave her a weak smile. "You know me and doctors."

She didn't laugh. Standing there, she murmured, "I understand, Daniel. I really do."

Daniel chewed on his lower lip, trying to think of something to say. When he couldn't find anything, he gave up and steered Dan towards the door.

"And Daniel?"

He turned around.

Janet gazed at him with sadness in her eyes, hands in her pockets. "If you do...see her...and you're forced to kill her, don't hesitate."

Now, Dan turned in his seat to hear better.

Janet looked around her infirmary, at the patients filling the beds. "I don't think my counterpart would want to keep on living as a prisoner of such a monster." She faced Daniel, her mouth set. "If there's no way to save her, free her." She pulled her hands out of her pockets, staring at them for some reason before tucking them back inside. "I know that's what my counterpart would probably want."

Daniel hesitated.

"Please."

Slowly, he nodded. "I promise."

Without another word, Daniel pushed Dan's chair out of the infirmary to join the others.

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John paced left and right outside the cell area. It was déjà vu all over again. Guarding cells of people and staring blankly at walls of hieroglyphics he couldn't begin to understand. Only this time, there weren't people inside the cells.

Only monsters.

Monsters.

"Captain O'Neill?" Booker waved a hand in front of his face, startling him.

John stared blankly at the chunky soldier as he nodded towards a corridor leading to the control room.

"Colonel O'Neill radioed us. They'll be packing up and heading out in about an hour."

John just nodded. "Any word on my brother?"

"He's fine, Cap." Kawalsky emerged from the corridor behind Booker. "Commander said he's at the briefing right now in fact, interrupting everyone as usual to get his point across."

John didn't laugh. "How's he feeling?"

Sobering, Kawalsky shrugged. "They didn't say, Cap. Sorry."

Grunting, John leaned against the wall by the closed cell room. His hand went up and scratched the inside of his collar where the armor had itched. John had taken off the armor as soon as he could, but the heavy feeling remained like a scar.

Booker scratched a spot over his right eyebrow. "I'd better relieve Anderson by the Stargate room. He can get pretty bored at times and gets pissed with me if I'm not there to annoy him." Awkward, scanning the two serious faces, Booker made his escape.

The faint sound of boots departing vanished completely before Kawalsky spoke.

"So...this is it."

"Yeah," grunted John.

"Cap, you know...I..." Kawalsky massaged the back of his neck. "Ah crap. Look, we know about your brother, okay? We know he doesn't have much— I'm really sorry about it."

John's eyes turned to flint as he looked at Kawalsky. The other soldier took it as a hint to shut up. So he fell silent, leaning against the opposite wall.

Standing there, John was painfully aware of the fact that time was growing short. In an hour, one hour, everyone would return, and they'd be off, heading back for Earth.

They had to win. Had to. He didn't want the last thing Dan knew to be miserable defeat. He wanted Dan to see them win, hang Ra's head on a pike before he…

No. He didn't want him to die. There had to be another way.

"John, you okay?"

"Watch the door," he croaked, ignoring Kawalsky's question. He slammed a fist into the symbol by the door, and it glided open to let him into the cells.

"Cap! What the hell are you doing?" yelped Kawalsky. "The commander said—"

The door shut over the captain's words.

"So," an arrogant voice remarked in Goa'uld. "The Shova returns."

John pressed a few buttons on his side of the door, the soft chime telling him it was sealed. It would take Kawalsky and the others a while to get the right combination. Slowly, he turned his head towards the speaker, standing away from the Jaffa crowded together in the other cell, all glowering at John, dressed in their tunics, stripped of their armor. The two cells stood parallel to each other, bathed in darkness save for a single stone glowing with light in the center of the hallway that lay between them. Jermak stood there in the cell to the left, hands behind his back like he was studying a painting.

"Enjoying the accommodations?" John sneered, talking in English. "Bet you never thought you would see this side of the ship!"

Jermak's eyes glowed brighter in the darkness. He switched to John's language with a light Greek accent as if patronizing a child. "There are many things we never thought to see and many more that will occur." He smiled, his grin sinister, stretching the handsome tanned face into something ugly. "But they are inevitable."

John glowered at him.

"Like your brother's death," Jermak taunted.

With a growl, John surged forward, thrusting his hands through the bars, grabbing Jermak by his collar. The Goa'uld didn't even have a chance to step back before John jerked him forward, slamming him against his own cell.

"Shova! You dare?" Eyes flashing, Jermak raised his hands to pull John's away. The captain pulled forward, smashing him against the cell bars again, ignoring the Jaffa guards cursing at him from the opposite cell.

John leaned close enough to be nose to nose with the general. "Listen to me, you slimy piece of garbage! We're going back, and we're going to smash your lovely little ships to kingdom come. I'll make sure you get to watch before we kill you and hang your stinking head on our Stargate for all to see!"

Calmly, Jermak let his arms dangle. "Will that be before or after the _re'klya_ dies?"

_Bang!_ John yanked him towards himself, the bars stopping the general from actually coming through. The Goa'uld spat at John, hissing at the human as he tasted blood from his broken nose.

"Shova! You will pay!"

"You're forgetting who's standing on which side of the cell," John hissed. "How do you take the _re'klya _off?"

"Filthy Tau'ri, I will see you burn in the pyres of Sokar! You—"

Another jerk forward. "I said how do you take those things off him?"

A cut opened on Jermak's forehead. "I will see your body is shredded and fed to the—"

"How do you take those things off him, you son of a bitch?" John roared. He pulled rhythmically, back then forward, back then forward, slamming Jermak into the bars. The metal bars scraped along John's arms as he went, but he didn't care. He could hear the taunting, the sneering, and he wanted Jermak to talk. "Tell me! Tell me or I'll smash every bone in that borrowed body of yours!" There had to be a way. There had to be!

"Tell me!"

"Shit!" Anderson exclaimed as the door finally opened. "Ah Christ! I need a hand in here!"

Arms went under John's armpits, around his waist, pulling him. John shouted angrily, refusing to let go. "Tell me, damn it! _Tell me!_"

"Cap, let go of him!"

"Book, will you get his—Oof!" Anderson came crashing down when John whipped his shoulder back and slammed into his chin.

"Jesus, John! Now is not the time to—"

"Tell me!" John shook the general through the bars. "How? How?"

Jermak's head lolled forward, blood dribbling down to the bars, around John's arms and to the floor.

"John. John!" Kawalsky shook John's arm free finally. "He's not going to answer! Shit. Booker, see if he's still alive!"

Seething, his breathing harsh rasps in the room, John let himself be pulled back from the cell. Staggering, half leaning against Kawalsky, John glowered at the slumped body on the floor.

It laughed.

Booker started and scrambled away on his butt. "Oh yeah, he's alive!"

Jermak lifted his bloody head, red stained teeth flashing as he laughed.

"What's so funny?" Kawalsky demanded, straining to keep John away. He tightened his arms wrapped under the armpits, over the shoulders. He glared around John. "What the hell are you laughing about?"

"You are just as blind as the _re'klya_." Cackling out loud as if it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard, Jermak crawled over to a wall, leaning against it, head tilted up to look at them with his remaining good eye. "Just as blind."

"Son of a—" John lurched forward, only to be yanked back by Kawalsky. Anderson kept his rifle trained on Jermak, Booker keeping a wary eye on the Jaffa jailed in the cell behind them.

"Take them off?" The Gou'ald general dabbed at a cut on his cheek with his hands, wiping the blood on the wall. His eyes, one swollen shut, the other wide open, glowed with amusement. "You wish to give him a more painful death?"

"How do I get them off him?" John seethed. Kawalsky and the others gave him a startled look.

"Cap, I thought—"

"No. There has to be a way. They got them in him. There has to be away to take them out!"

Jermak shook his head, hands on his belly as he chuckled. "Such small minds. Such simple, small, primitive minds." He observed the soldiers' scalding glares and laughed again.

"There is no way, Shova. Only in death will they fall. Only in death."

John's eyes bulged. "You _lie._"

"About many things and to many people." Jermak smirked, folding his hands like a steeple and smiled, his face a gruesome sight of broken teeth and bent nose. "But not about this, Shova." His grin broadened. "He will die. Regretfully, I will not see it."

With a roar deep within himself, John broke free from Kawalsky's grip, lunging for the cell. Jermak laughed and laughed as John stuck a hand through the bars, trying to reach him.

"John! Calm down!" Arms pulling him away again, John screamed in fury, fists flailing as he tried to reach the bastard. He felt himself being dragged away.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" John howled as he was forcefully exited out the door. He broke free and reached for the door, only it shut before he could reenter. "Let me in there!"

"I can't let you do that!" Pushing him further away, Kawalsky motioned Anderson and Booker to plant themselves by the door. "Now unless you're going to shoot all of us, back off!"

John's glare bore a hole through the other captain's head.

"Back off, Cap! Don't let him rile you up!" Kawalsky pointed to the other corridor. "Why don't you go and watch the Stargate room for the others?"

"No," John grated out. "Let me back in there."

"I can't do that, John. We have our orders—"

"Fuck the orders!"

Kawalsky looked at him real hard. "You do that, John, and I'll have to report you to the commander."

John stopped.

"You know she'll probably leave you behind. And I know you want a shot at Ra."

A muscle in John's jaw twitched.

"Am I right, John?" Kawalsky waved at the cell door. "Am I?"

John stood there and bunched his fists.

"Save your anger for the head snake, man!"

Growling low, John abruptly spun around. Anderson and Booker tensed, closing ranks in front of the door. The captain looked at the two, then went down the corridor.

"Where you're going?" Kawalsky called out down the hallway.

"The Stargate room!" barked John as he stomped all the way down there.

Kawalsky looked at the other two soldiers. They all breathed out a sigh of relief.

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The rows of soldiers, both SGC and rebels, stood on the ramp waiting, garbed in Kevlar and helmets.

Jack, Sammy Hansen, and General Maybourne looked down solemnly on the group. General Hammond stood at the bottom, giving Jack a nod to go ahead.

"Okay," Jack called out. "This is going to stand for your debriefing."

The group made no complaint.

Jack caught Maybourne's nod of consent and continued. "In about eight hours, Ra is scheduled to arrive on your planet. As you know, we've got a ship, cargo ship size, that we're told can get us there within six hours."

Hansen took over next. "We're going to have four teams. Red, Blue, Green, and the SG-1 team."

"What about Colburn's men?" one of the rebels called.

Hansen didn't look too happy about the question. "They're not coming with us."

A murmur spread around the rebels among the group.

The commander stared unblinkingly at her men. "I am not going to give you some propaganda speech. What you see is what you get. There's no backup, no cavalry coming with us." _That's because they might have been blown up with the other sub_, she thought, her chest tightening, names of those in that sub flashing in her memory. "We're not going back for Colburn and his team."

"We can't risk the men," Maybourne stepped in. He stood there, tall, hands clasped behind his back, dressed in an odd mix of blue jumpsuit and black Kevlar. "There's no time to wait to track them down wherever they are on the planet, have them meet us and head for home. There's simply no time."

"And we need a backup..." Hansen paused, eyes drifting to Dan, who was standing by Daniel, leaning on a cane. "In case we fail."

There were a few scattered nods, understanding.

"I won't lie to you," Jack spoke, his eyes scanning the group, stopping at his team members dressed in black, Carter tucking hair into her wool hat. "This isn't a piece of cake. Judging from what has happened so far, stuff can get out of our control. It might get messy. But," Jack looked towards his team, then over to Dan. "It can be done."

Hansen cleared her throat. "Okay. I want you all to pay attention! SG-1 will be heading for Ra's ship from the surface when he is sighted. General Maybourne and myself will head Red team. Captain O'Neill, Captain Kawalsky, and Captain Ferretti will head Blue team. Siler, you have your group. You make sure you safely reach the power source for that Stargate and set up the hard drive and reactor so they can dial. These three teams will get into Cheyenne, Blue posing as guards transporting Red and Green team as prisoners. Your objective is to take the base back and secure the Stargate for the Asgard symbols to be dialed."

Jack nodded. "Major Ferretti, your team will remain on Jermak's transport ship. Be our lookout. Have charges set for the ship. Once Ra's ship is sighted, you let us know. SG-1 will be going in, infiltrate the maze based on the data we got from Machello's tablets and blow the shields. The controls in his ship override every Goa'uld ship orbiting your planet. Bring them down, and we shut everything down. The depot stations will be vulnerable to future attacks."

Hansen took over. "Blue team will remain in Cheyenne, labeled as Alpha One, and hold the fort. General Maybourne, Jolinar and Doctor O'Neill will be entering the Stargate and contacting the Asgards. Your standing orders will be to make sure no one else follows them. No one. Red team will make sure the rest of the base is all clear. Green team, make sure that Stargate is working so our people can come back."

"What about Hathor?" another soldier asked. Jack couldn't tell who it was, but he caught the tensing from both Dan and Daniel.

"Jermak's ship will be rigged with explosives. With her shields gone, Major Ferretti will guide the ship closer and blow it after he leaves. The explosion should take her ship down." Jack glanced over to Jolinar and General Maybourne. "As for Jermak's battleship..."

"We get rid of Ra and they'll be running around like chickens with their heads cut off," Maybourne said grimly. "Jermak's ship will be taken over by us after Ra's eliminated. We still have Jermak. We'll use him in exchange for his ship. The snake will comply unless he wants to spend the rest of his life in some hole."

Jack personally preferred they just blow all three up but knew they didn't have enough people to divide up to do so. He went around the room. "Any questions?"

No one spoke.

General Hammond walked up the ramp and turned around to the soldiers at the bottom. "As a representative of this base, of my planet and reality, we wish you all the very best of luck." He glanced over his men, nodding as some saluted. "It's a huge responsibility to uphold, I know. But also remember your other responsibility—to stay alive."

Everyone's faces were serious, solemn as they bobbed their heads.

Jack went over to General Hammond. "We're ready to go, sir."

Hammond studied Jack carefully. "Good luck, Colonel. God speed." He turned to Maybourne and Hansen. He took great care shaking each of their hands. "To you both as well. There'll be a cup of coffee waiting for you when you come back to get your injured men."

Hansen shook the hand, her grip strong and firm. "Thank you, sir. Tell them we'll be back for them soon. Real soon."

Maybourne held Hammond's hand, the other clasping over the handshake. "Thanks for the hospitality, George. You're a good man. In both worlds."

"Thank you. The coffee and your men will be waiting."

Maybourne winked. "I'm counting on it."

With a brief smile, Hammond and the others came down the ramp. Then, looking towards the observation room, Hammond gave the technician a nod.

And the Stargate began to turn.

Chevron one locked.


	44. Chapter 43

**CHAPTER FORTY THREE**

Jermak wiped the remaining blood off his chin, and with each droplet he spied on his hands, he cursed the human. Glaring at the hallway, the general spat out more blood.

"Jaffa," he murmured, getting their attention. Softly, he spoke in Goa'uld. "How goes it?"

The guards parted, giving Jermak a view of the cell floor. Scratches, bloody streaks marring the floor around a barred vent made Jermak smile. He didn't look sympathetic towards the guards cradling their broken fingers, damaged from trying to scrape the loose plaster away from the sides the bars were fastened to.

"It will take many hours," one of the Jaffa murmured, head bowed as Jermak snarled.

"Then hurry!" The general waved them to continue. "I wish to taste the Tau'ri's death by my hand!"

The Jaffa bowed their heads again and hurried back to work.

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Jack gave the chamber a grunt as he felt the teleport rings release him. He checked, saw his team was present, Dan leaning against Teal'c for support, and gave another grunt. Daniel absently shifted his load of notebooks in his arms.

"Geez, Daniel. Don't you ever pack light?" Jack grumbled, catching a few books that failed to comply with Daniel's arrangement. He eyed the scribbling on some pages, scowling at one particular tome. "Ever heard of light reading material?"

"Rothman had notes on the walls of the inner rooms, Jack," murmured Daniel as he rearranged some volumes, wishing he'd had time to grab another bag before Jack had hustled him through the Stargate. "He was a little concerned about an inscription written on the last panel which I didn't have a chance to study. Some warning about the bracelets."

Jack raised his arm, studying the wire circlets. Absently, he placed the books back on top of Daniel's pile as he did, walking away. The archeologist squeaked as they began to fall again. This time, Carter caught them as Daniel glared at Jack over the top of his load.

"What kind of warning?" Twisting his hand, Jack gave the plain looking gold wire another look. "Don't tell me they've got an expiration date on them? 'Cause I can tell you, those dates don't mean anything. Especially on milk. Hell, I had milk that still tasted good even after three da—"

Anderson gave Jack a quick salute, interrupting him. "Welcome aboard, sir."

Jack grimaced. "Ah...thanks. We've got more coming, kids. Better step away from the nice ring on the floor." He walked over to John, who was standing against the wall, brooding. Jack stopped in front of him. "Hey."

"Hey," John grumbled back. He glanced around the newly arrived group. "Your Simmons kid not coming with us?"

Making a face, Jack shook his head. "Last I checked, the guy was still climbing the walls with the adrenaline rush. Better not chance it."

"Huh," John grunted. "What did you do with the...body?"

Daniel's voice was soft when he spoke. "We placed it in our morgue. You can come back for him when this is over."

_If it's ever over_, John thought, lowering his head without comment. He raised his head again though when he heard his name faintly called. The darkness fled from his eyes, and he walked past Jack, hands extended to accept Dan's from Teal'c. Carefully, he guided his younger brother to the back, easing him down to the floor.

"Thanks," Dan said. Sighing, he leaned against the wall, neck tilted back. Dressed in a plain blue flightsuit, a BDU jacket zipped over that with the Kevlar vest, he looked bulky. But his hands, still thin, shook as he waved them in front of him. "So...are we there yet?"

Jack cracked a smile. "Not yet. Geez, you're worse than Daniel. Guy can't sit still on a road trip."

Daniel gave Jack a dirty look as he murmured conspiratorially, "Yes, but have you seen him drive? No one can sit still."

"Oh yeah, I can testify to that," Sam muttered under her breath, grinning cheekily at the colonel as he shot her a glare.

"I'm surrounded." Throwing up his hands, Jack groused, "I surrender." He sobered, looking over his shoulder to see more people arriving. He eyed the door leading out of the chamber. "Who's watching over Jerky boy?"

"Kawalsky," was John's short reply as he scowled darkly for some reason.

Jack frowned. "How's he doing?"

"Oh..." John smirked suddenly. "He's been quiet so far, just...lying around."

Jack exchanged a raised eyebrow with Teal'c. "Uh, big guy? Why don't you keep Kawalsky company, okay?"

"Very well, O'Neill." Teal'c bowed his head towards his comrades and left.

The rings whooshed upward, Jolinar and a few others arriving with the beam's departure. She headed straight for the rectangular shaped console, the machine standing a little more than waist high, painted in gold with a soft pulsing light gleaming out of a small hole carved in its center. The Tok'ra slipped on the hand device she'd taken from Jermak, putting her hand into the small tunnel. The ship hummed in response. "The course has been set, O'Neill," Jolinar said.

"Thanks," Jack, John and Dan replied. They paused, Jack groaning.

"Look, I think she was referring to me," Jack griped as he watched Jolinar cross the room.

The Tok'ra greeted everyone with a gracious nod. Changed into a fancier dress, a gold gown with beads, she held the headpiece usually worn by royalty.

"Nice hat," commented Jack. He caught the swallow Daniel made before the archeologist looked away. Giving the headgear another look, Jack mentally groaned when he realized it resembled Sha're's royal crown.

_"Daniel?" Jack approached his friend lying on the floor, curled up in front of Sha're. "Daniel...we have to go. They may come back with reinforcements."_

_Sitting up, Daniel mutely nodded. He shuffled over to the body, caressing Sha're's hair._

_Jack felt like a beast as he cleared his throat, ignoring the others as he crouched by his friend. "Daniel? Come on, buddy. We can't stay here."_

_"Wait." Like wind blowing through a crack in a wall, Daniel was barely audible. He half crawled, half dragged himself closer to Sha're and pulled the serpent headpiece away from her hair. "G-get this...get this out of my sight." He looked at Jack, pleading. "Please, Jack..."_

_Jack didn't say another word. He took it, went outside and tossed it on one of the fires smoldering from their battles. He watched it burn, the snake's eyes glittering once before dulling to dark ash._

"The royal costume of a favored consort." Making a face of distaste, she held it in her hands, making no move to wear it. "As his...favorite, I can make some commands aboard this vessel. Perhaps it will be useful."

Jack grimaced, aware of Daniel shifting from foot to foot. "Uh...yeah. Listen, we need someone here to watch the ship, make sure it doesn't go off course."

"I will remain," Jolinar volunteered.

With another look at his friend, Jack noted the tired slump of Daniel's shoulders despite the archeologist's constant efforts to sit up straighter. "Daniel, you said you needed another glance at the notes?"

Daniel blinked. "Uh...yes...I do." He exchanged a surprised look with Sam.

"Why don't you find a room and sack out for twenty? Carter, go with him. Double, no, triple check those rooms before going in. I want patrols cycling. Every two hours. Break in between. We need to conserve our energy for this. Daniel, you stay there. Work on those notes," Jack suggested. "Make sure these things," he waved his bracelet for show, "aren't going to blow up on us or something. Okay?"

"Okay." Turning, Daniel started to walk out, Carter following with an armful of books.

"Daniel?"

The archeologist looked over his shoulder, stopping.

Jack gazed seriously at him. "No thinking, okay?"

Ignoring the curious expression on Sam's face, Daniel nodded, avoiding looking at Jolinar. He gave a mumbled "Later" and left the chamber.

"That's the last of them!" Anderson called as the teleport rings disappeared.

"Colonel O'Neill," Hansen greeted the moment she stepped off the ring area. "We should have patrols making rounds. I'm thinking two hour intervals."

Jack exchanged a bemused look with John. "You read my mind."

"I'll take first watch here with Jol," the captain volunteered. He draped an arm around Dan, who was beginning to doze off. The scholar stirred at the touch, murmuring until John leaned over his ear and whispered it was okay. Dan nodded sleepily and went back to sleep.

Hansen's eyes softened. "Go right ahead, Captain. We'll be passing out rations later. Gotta keep up our strength. Colonel, you can have first patrol with Ferretti and Siler."

Jack muttered, "Joy." He said nothing more though, watching as John's hand went up and down Dan's arm, lulling the younger man to sleep. There was a bad taste in his mouth as Jack wondered if the scholar would still be able to wake up later. Jack was more than happy to follow Captain Ferretti and Siler to the halls. As he left, the ship shuddered and began to hyperspeed towards Earth.

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Kawalsky alternated leaning his weapon from one shoulder to the other, whistling to fill the silence surrounding the hallways in either direction he faced. He started when he felt the ship stir, relaxing as he figured they were on their way.

Shuffling his feet, the soldier happened to look down and blinked when he realized his right boot had just smeared a droplet of blood. Frowning, he tilted his head back, chewing thoughtfully as he wondered where the blood must have come from. His eyes widened, and he smirked as he remembered.

Jermak.

"Never piss off a brother," he murmured, peering down on the pinkish spot on what was otherwise a gleaming flawless floor. "Nope. Never should. Especially not those two."

_Kawalsky shook his head vehemently, hands making a cutting gesture in the air. He glared back at the thin, anxious face before him. "No way, José!" His voice, despite his care to keep it low, made an echoing hiss down the sewer tunnels. "John will neuter me if I agree!"_

_"There won't be any neutering done if he's not even here to do it!" Dan shouted back. _

_"Sh!" Kawalsky yanked him closer, and the two men slammed against the tunnel walls. They fell silent, watching the activity above them, humans and Jaffa mixed together as rows and rows of slaves were hustled up and down to either mines or factories, or worse, to the depots where they were never seen or heard from again. Kawalsky watched the light ten feet above them, flicker in and out from the tiny grating above. He didn't grimace as ooze or whatever the hell it was dripped from above, landing squarely on his face and black clothing._

_After a while, Kawalsky relaxed and let Dan go with a glare. "Great going, kid! Yell a little louder, and maybe the aliens in Italy can hear you!"_

_Dan ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. He began pacing back and forth again, occasionally rubbing his arms up and down to ward off the chill his layers of flannel shirts and tees couldn't hold off. Kawalsky made a mental note to see if he could salvage a couple of coats for Dan and his family before winter came. _

_"Look, I can't just wait around wondering where John is! It's been nearly two weeks! Two weeks and all I have is that lousy note from him saying everything will be okay!" Dan gestured wildly, hands bunching to fists as they dropped to his sides. "Dammit, Charlie. This isn't like before. I can't suddenly bug Frank to take me back to Iraq and find him! I don't even know where to begin!" He nervously ran his tongue over his lower lip, staring steadily at Kawalsky. "Take me with you."_

_"Uh uh," Kawalsky cut in, shaking his head. "No way. Look, I didn't come here to ask you to sign up for the army!" He pulled out a small microcassette player from his knapsack. "Someone was able to sneak in and record this from one of the head serpents. We just need you to tell us what they're saying and—"_

_"No."_

_Kawalsky blinked. "What did you say?"_

_Dan folded his arms and scowled defiantly at him. "You heard me. I said no. You want my help, you'll have to take me with you."_

_"Dammit, Dan! I promised John if I ever came across the resistance, I would never try to involve you! I'm breaking my promise already by coming here with this!"_

_"And I'm not going to sit here and do nothing while my brother is out there God knows where doing whatever!" Dan stuck out his chin stubbornly._

_Kawalsky glowered at his young friend. "Then what about your folks, huh? Who's going to watch over them?"_

_Dan's resolve visibly wavered._

_"And what about Sara, man? You gonna leave John's wife to handle everything?" Kawalsky saw the last of the determination break away, revealing the doubt. He extended his hand and the player again. "Please, Dan. You want to help? This would be the best way you can. Help us get ahead of these snakes. Use your brain, not a gun." The soldier sighed when he saw Dan didn't respond. "Fine. I'm not going to force you. I came to give you guys some food and supplies. I'm going to keep my word to John no matter what you decide. There should be enough canned food we've salvaged from the bombed buildings to last you guys a few—"_

_"I'll do it," Dan said wearily. "Damn it, I'll do it."_

_Kawalsky's mouth broke into a relieved grin._

_"On one condition."_

_His smile faltered. "What condition? Dan, I can't take you with me."_

_Dan took the device and looked at Kawalsky sternly. "You find out for me where he is."_

_Kawalsky blanched. "Kid, I don't know if—"_

_"No John, no news on his whereabouts and no—" Dan stretched out the hand holding the player, hovering it over a slimy pit of water below. His eyebrow rose high, silently daring him to call his bluff._

_Growling, Kawalsky threw up his hands. "Fine! Fine! You drive a hard bargain!"_

_Dan studied him carefully, trying to read whatever he was searching for from Kawalsky. Charlie tried very hard to appear, hell, he didn't know…maybe, confident? Trustworthy? He just hoped to God that whatever Dan was looking for, he'd be satisfied with what he'd found and not run off on some reckless one man rescue team. _

_Finally, the young man grunted in response. "Don't try and give me some false news like oh, he's okay and crap like that. I want something solid."_

_Kawalsky narrowed his eyes. "You would have helped us anyway, wouldn't you?"_

_Dan shrugged, but Kawalsky caught the half smirk on the younger man's face. He swore softly. _

_"Can't ever bluff you. Shit. John created a monster when he taught you poker."_

_"Oh please. How did you think I was able to buy my own stuff when I was on scholarship in college?" Dan's grin broadened as he waggled his eyebrows. "I wasn't going to take any allowance from our folks. How did you think John got that pair of Raybans for his birthday?"_

_"Man." Shaking his head, Kawalsky sat down on the raised step bordering the tunnel walls. He made a face at the dried up muck clinging to the tunnels, water long since stopped from flowing through. "Now I know why Cap was laughing so hard when I suggested including you in our weekly games."_

_Dan shrugged with a dry smile. "Thanks. The money was useful."_

_"Beginner's luck, my ass. You and John were in on it, I'll bet. When I find him...Wait 'til I get my hands on him..."_

_Dan sobered. "You'd better, Charlie."_

_"Huh?"_

_Dan gazed down at the player in his hands. "You'd better find him." His face hardened. "Or I swear I'll go out there and find him myself."_

_Kawalsky stared at him, gulping as he realized this was how Dan must have looked as he went to Iraq to find John. _

_"Okay," Kawalsky promised. "We'll find him. I swear. Don't do anything rash. Just keep yourself and your family safe. Trust me to do the rest."_

_Two months later, during a regular visit to check on them, Kawalsky found their house ransacked, their hiding place torn to shreds._

_Everyone was gone._

His watch beeped.

Looking down at the watch, he peeled the black masking tape from it, peering at the time. The LCD screen flickered once and solidified, telling him it had been ten minutes.

Time for another check.

Kawalsky tapped the symbols, the door opening, allowing him to enter. Rifle cradled in his hands, he stepped in, eyeing the prisoners.

Jermak sat on the floor against the wall. His face cleaned up, his eyes were clear with disgust and hate for the human entering the cells.

"Comfy?" Kawalsky quipped as he made a mental count of the guards. Ten. And with the slave girl they found hiding in one of the rooms, locked away from them, that made twelve prisoners.

The Jaffa locked inside said nothing, glaring silently as he took a step in reverse, not about to turn his back on them. Slowly, once he made sure they were still all in their cells, Kawalsky went backwards until he sensed the door behind him. Only then, did he turn around, rifle still trained forward and tapped the symbols to be let out.

Light flooded the area where he stood, brightening the cells with the glow from outside. His shadow stretched across to the cells, then retreated as he exited.

Kawalsky turned around with a sigh. He hoped they'd send more guys for him. Standing guard solo to a bunch of snakes was not on his To Do list. He pivoted on his heels to face forward again when he caught a glimpse of a gold tattoo.

His rifle whipped up. "Stay where you are!"

Teal'c stood there calmly, staff weapon straight in his left fist.

Kawalsky grunted, recognition lowering his hands. "Oh. Sorry. I...you know...reflex."

"I understand."

"What are you doing here?" Kawalsky gave a quick glance over Teal'c's shoulder, a huge feat considering how the former Jaffa towered over him. No one else was with the alien.

"Colonel O'Neill decided I should keep you...company."

Kawalsky gave him a dubious look. "Yeah? Uh...thanks."

"You are quite welcome," Teal'c told him solemnly and took the right side of the door as his post. The dark eyes stared straight forward, and the alien stilled like a statue.

Kawalsky scratched the back of his head, tipping his helmet back. Finally, the silence getting to him, he took off his helmet and pulled out the cigarettes he'd taped inside. Checking to make sure they weren't crushed, the captain took one out and paused. He glanced sideways to Teal'c who'd made no move since he stood on that spot.

"Want one?" Kawalsky offered. "Do you guys...uh...you know...smoke tobacco?"

Arching an eyebrow, Teal'c took the cigarette and gave it a sniff. His eyebrow went higher.

"This is a narcotic."

Shrugging, Kawalsky studied the high ceiling, wondering if the serpents had such things as sprinklers and smoke detectors. He shrugged again and took another one out, balancing it carefully between his lips. "Yeah," he said, the tobacco nodding up and down as he spoke. "But a good smoke now and then relaxes you. Especially in the life we're having nowadays. I quit a while back before the invasion but found these in a bombed out factory. Took a whole bunch with me. Thought they shouldn't go to waste like everything else on my planet." Patting his pockets, Kawalsky grimaced as he found the worn matchbook. "What I need though, is some more matches."

"Do you need to start a fire?" Teal'c inquired as he watched the soldier rip off the last match from the packet and give it a quick swipe across a dark stripe. The head of the match ignited into a small dancing flame. His gaze followed as it floated towards the exposed end of the cigarette, burning it immediately. "You are damaging the narcotic."

Kawalsky took a long drag, motioning to the still burning match and then at Teal'c. The Jaffa, puzzled but curious, imitated Kawalsky, biting down on the cigarette and bent close enough to let the flame burn the leaves exposed on that end. Kawalsky shook the match, extinguishing it as Teal'c straightened and stood there stiffly, cigarette in his mouth, burning away.

"Uh...you're supposed to do this." The captain made a show of taking a deep breath. The cigarette lit bright red, then faded as he exhaled the smoke.

The Jaffa did the same, but no smoke emerged. Kawalsky scratched his cheek nervously. Hopefully, the Jaffa wasn't foolish enough to inhale the entire thing.

Teal'c made a face and took the cigarette out of his mouth. "This does not relax me. I am afraid I must decline your gift." He crumpled it in his hand, not bothered by the heat. "The Goa'uld larva stirs uneasily at this. I must abstain."

Kawalsky's face darkened, the cigarette sagging a bit in his mouth. He'd almost forgotten about that part. Mind focused on showing him how to smoke, Kawalsky for a moment forgot Teal'c was just like the enemies they'd fought against for three long hard years. He grunted and faced forward again, wishing he had some other company. The cigarette bobbed up and down as he inhaled deeply again. After a few seconds, he glanced over to Teal'c, hesitating.

"Hey...uh...Tick, right?"

"Teal'c," the Jaffa corrected him, not sounding angry.

"Yeah...Teal'c. Sorry...I know the colonel said you were on our, well, the colonel's side, but...uh..." Kawalsky ruefully rubbed the back of his neck, teeth gripping the end of the cigarette firmly. "How the hell did that come about?"

"I was Apophis' First Prime. O'Neill, Daniel Jackson and Major Carter were infiltrating the palace on my home world in search of friends who were taken to be hosts." Teal'c paused when he heard Kawalsky mumble to himself.

"First Prime, huh?" The captain gave Teal'c a wary look. "What? The colonel offer you higher pay?"

To Kawalsky's surprise, a small smile appeared on the dark face. "No. He offered to help my people."

"Huh." It was all Kawalsky could think of. "And you believed him?"

"I believed he was an honorable warrior."

"Must have been a hell of an impression," the captain commented. "Going up against a supposed god of your religion."

Teal'c nodded. "That is why he and his people are my people's greatest hope. The people of the Tau'ri mean hope."

Kawalsky leaned his head back, smoke puffing out of his mouth as he snorted. "Yeah? Well, Tau'ri means something a hell of a lot different on our world."

"But it will mean the same soon."

Kawalsky paused, looking over to Teal'c. "You sound pretty damn sure, mister."

Teal'c bowed his head. "That is because it has been done before."

"Yeah?" Kawalsky took another long drag and took the cigarette out as he smiled sadly. "Would sure like to see it."

"You will."

Kawalsky raised the cigarette in a mock toast. "You know what? I believe you. Never thought I would take the word of a Jaffa, but yeah...I believe you."

Teal'c gave another small smile.

"You sure you don't want another cigarette?"

"No."

SG1SG1SG1

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Sitting in the chamber, watching dully as the stars flashed by, John felt Dan stir under his arm. Dipping his head low, he listened carefully for any breathing problems but found none. Dan was sleeping, head rolled against his chest, eyes closed, mouth partly open as he slept. He looked so normal, so...healthy.

It just wasn't right.

John swallowed and stared at the screen in the front again, Jolinar moving left and right checking the controls, talking in low tones to Maybourne. Everyone was serious, joking gone as they waited for the ship to slow down upon arrival. A few more hours and they would be back for the final battle.

Everything ended there. Everything.

The captain looked down at Dan.

Everything.

Dan made a face, a soft catch of breath in pain, and he shifted, eyes fluttering open. He frowned, his left hand out to feel the support against him.

"It's me, Dan."

"Oh." Dan fell silent, his hand back down in his lap.

Carefully rearranging his jacket over his brother's shoulders, John brushed a knuckle against Dan's cheek. "You couldn't see me?"

Dan waved his hand weakly in the air. "No. I just wake up to...this now."

"You didn't eat much of the rations the commander passed out. Want some more?" John started unwrapping the remainder of the bar.

"No, John, not hungry." Dan fumbled until he found John's hands and pulled them down. "Can't stomach that stuff anyway."

"How about some water?"

Dan felt the canteen press to his lips. Mentally sighing, knowing that protesting it'd all come back up on him wasn't going to help, Dan dutifully drank a sip before shaking his head. Stiffening, he hunched over again, coughing into a fist. "Damn...hate this."

"Easy now." John's hand rubbed a spot between his shoulder blades, smoothing away the rattle that bounced in Dan's lungs. "Why don't you go back to sleep? We have time."

"Do we?" Dan shrugged away the hand John had dropped on his shoulder. "No. Don't. We have to pay attention to the mission."

John's hand lingered where it was. It curled into a fist before he relaxed it. "Okay. Let's talk about it. You're going to be our messenger to the Asgards."

"John, I told you. I don't think I can make it to reach them—"

"You can. You and Jolinar and General Maybourne. You three are the best representatives to plead our case to them."

"Great," Dan said bitterly. "A human, a Tok'ra and a corpse. Yeah, that'll get their attention, all right."

"Don't say that!"

Shaking his head, Dan sounded tired. "John...for God's sake, don't be like this. Face it. I'm on borrowed time and morphine. I'm surprised I can even hold a coherent conversation with you right now." He tapped John on the knee. "You told me you'd be okay with this."

"Oh, and you are?"

Dan stilled. He drew up his legs, more to alleviate the pain radiating from his stomach and chest, dropping his head on his knees. "Well, I'm not really that eager to ride off into the sunset yet." He swallowed hard. "But what choice do I have?"

"You can stay for as long as you can, fight for every second. Give me a chance to at least try and find a cure."

Raising his head, Dan snapped. "What? You want minutes? Hours? John, dammit, I don't even know myself!" He coughed again, hissing as his chest flared in excruciating shocks. "God..."

John curled his arm around his brother. "Just promise me you'll stay for as long as you can. Don't just give up."

"Fine..." sighed Dan. "Although I don't know what good that will—"

"Promise me."

Dan dropped his head against John's arm. The captain raised his arm until Dan was comfortably curled next to him. The younger brother shivered.

"Cold?"

Shaking his head, Dan shuddered once more. "Not cold. Just...tired."

John pressed his cheek against Dan's head. "It's just for a while longer. Okay?"

Head nodding against his chin, Dan gave another sigh and whispered, "Okay."

SG1SG1SG1

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SG1SG1SG1

Daniel checked his watch, wondering if he should be dropping by the control room and taking over a shift. He massaged his temples wearily. His headache was back. The archeologist sat there, cross-legged and flipped through Rothman's notes on the walls to pass the time.

"No, no," he murmured out loud. "Not begins once more...starts all over again." He frowned, eyeing the bracelet on his wrist. "Start over again? Start what all over again?"

Daniel tapped a pencil against his knee, chewing thoughtfully. He absently took a bite out of the rations Sam had given him and made a face. His appetite gone, he left it on the floor and just took a sip from the thermos instead, gulping down lukewarm coffee without another thought.

Scribbling in the margin, correcting some comments Rothman and a few of the other archeologists they had on payroll had made, Daniel frowned as he pieced together what the inscriptions on the wall said, the picture his mind painted too eerie to ignore. During this time, he was also aware of the chill permeating from the floor. He shifted uncomfortably, the hard surface a harsh reminder of another ship just days before, of cruel, arrogant voices talking over his head like he was nothing, the feeling of helplessness that wrapped around him the whole time.

Daniel sighed, stopping his note taking to massage his head. Why was he doing this to himself?

Stop thinking.

He'd promised Jack he wouldn't think about it, about her, about Li—

Daniel clapped a hand over his mouth. The last thing he needed was to lose this nourishment as well. He knew he hadn't been eating feasts the past few days, and on some occasions, what little he picked at came up just as quickly as he forced it down. And the side glances Jack gave him when he thought Daniel wasn't looking, told him the irregular meals were beginning to show despite himself. He swallowed, took another gulp of coffee and relaxed when his stomach calmed.

Daniel slouched forward, knees drawn close, forehead resting on top of them, his notebook scrunched up uncomfortably within his frame.

Stop thinking. Stop thinking.

Deep down, Daniel couldn't check the little voice crying out that it wasn't fair. She was just one woman. One woman married too young to a drunk, becoming too bitter too fast, and Daniel had to live in the house of her wrath. The counselors patted themselves on the back for catching it soon enough, getting him away into another home in record time once an overworked teacher finally got suspicious about all his absent days and baggy clothes and cared enough to send him to the school nurse.

But Daniel felt it wasn't soon enough.

No irreparable damage, they had said. He was young enough still to make new attachments to other parents. He wouldn't be permanently traumatized by the ordeal, they said.

But it felt like it was already too late for him.

He could have sworn he saw her everywhere. Everywhere! Lurking behind a closet, her footsteps approaching a closed door, screaming he was too dumb, too useless for anyone to care about him. He found himself building a wall, a silent wall that sealed away everyone who might have started to care about him. He couldn't bring himself to be released, to risk finding another face twisted in a perverted facade of concern but brandishing fists of scorn. He didn't want to find out if another family would like him. He was too scared, too tired at a young tender age, to try and find out. So to every household he went, Daniel mastered the air of indifference, and the frustrated silence of foster parents brewed before they finally gave up and sent him back. He trained himself to stop flinching when adults raised their voices, trained himself to forget the bad years and concentrate on words in books because they didn't talk to him with such spite. And he decided the only parents who would have cared were the ones buried after they died before his eyes.

So he decided he had no one left to worry about him and therefore no one left to answer to. And it was an easy choice to make. And he thought it made life easier to deal with, traveling from dig to dig without attachments.

But in the back of his mind, her voice remained, taunting, scorning.

_"Beloved."_

Although lately, that voice was having company.

_"Sha're, fight it!"_

_"My host can not help you."_

A lot of company.

"Am I interrupting?"

Daniel closed his eyes as the exotic voice echoed into the small room. He shook his head, wishing he could refuse or perhaps make up an excuse to leave. "No. Just going over some notes in case there's something important in them."

Jolinar crossed the room, stepping over the books he had littered all over the place and gingerly sat down on the floor. Daniel frowned, hearing her thin dress crinkle, her jewelry clinking together upon folding. "Uh, should you be doing that? You don't want to mess up your disguise."

"It will be fine." She stayed where she was, dark eyes casting over Daniel until he shifted uncomfortably.

"Uh...what is it?" he asked as he restlessly flipped through sheaves of notes.

"Was I your wife?"

Daniel's hands jerked, and the book dropped to the floor. Fumbling, Daniel reached for it. Tanned hands caught his fingers, stopping him. Daniel reluctantly looked at her.

Jolinar gazed back with concern, earnest eyes with a full mouth curved downward with worry. Her face, so like her, the eyes, the way a side curl would tickle the corner of her eye. He could see himself in her eyes, deep warm brown, lashes that veiled her brightness when she blinked. Briefly, he wondered if her hair still smelled like the deserts of Abydos, dry and clean.

When Daniel didn't speak, her hand tightened around his in inquiry, her face closer to examine him. He was so close, he could see his own wishful look on his face reflected in the luminous eyes. Her breath came out warm, caressing his face, lulling him closer, teasing him with the possibility that the touch of it against his face would feel the same as it did long ago when he first became a husband for too short a time.

Daniel leaned over and kissed her on the lips.

Eyes widening, Jolinar froze. She didn't try to move away. In fact, she moved closer, opening her mouth, allowing him in deeper. She raised her hand, caressing his shoulder as it drifted upward and cupped the back of his neck to bring him closer. The contact woke Daniel, and with a gasp he jerked back so violently he nearly fell off his perch.

"Oh God!" he choked, his hand covering his mouth in shock. "Sorry. I-"

"It is all right." Jolinar didn't lean away. She came closer, reaching out her hand to him. Daniel flinched.

"Don't. Please."

Jolinar pulled back at his request. "You miss your wife. It is understandable you would react this way."

Staring at her, speechless, Daniel gave his mouth another wipe with his hand before dropping the limb. "I...You...You're not her."

Bowing her head once, Jolinar asked, "And yet you kissed me." Her eyes flashed once at him.

Nauseated at the sight, Daniel scooted back on his rear without realizing it. "I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. I didn't mean...I mean...I shouldn't have done that."

"Do you apologize to me?" Jolinar asked solemnly "Or to my host?"

"W-what?"

"Do you apologize to—"

Daniel waved his hand. "No...I heard the question the first time. I just..." He gestured towards her helplessly. "How can you not even be upset about it?"

"You seem to be upset enough for both of us."

"Shouldn't it be the three of us?" Daniel blurted before he could stop himself. Immediately, he winced. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it...God...I'm beginning to sound like Jack!"

Jolinar smiled. "I was about to say you sounded like Dan O'Neill."

Daniel stuck out his chin. "You're not her," he insisted.

"Then why did you kiss me?"

"Why didn't you stop me?"

The Tok'ra paused, observing him with sadness. "You appeared to need it."

"I appeared to...to need it?" Daniel stood up, agitated. He folded his arms, turning towards the golden hieroglyphic walls.

"Dan-yel Jackson. May I ask you a question?"

Daniel closed his eyes at the accented pronunciation of his name. "What?" he asked cautiously.

"How did she die? Your wife?"

"She just did," croaked Daniel.

"No one just dies. There are painful ways, and there are peaceful ways." Standing, Jolinar crossed over to Daniel but didn't touch him. "How did she die?"

"She died...after three years of me searching for her, of her waiting for me to save her," Daniel whispered. "The Goa'ulds...took her as a host. I only found her just recently before she...d-died."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I've heard it all before," Daniel interrupted her condolences. He gave her a grim look that failed to be a smile. "It's okay, though. Her suffering's over. She's no longer a prisoner in her own body now so I'm...relieved."

Jolinar looked at him silently.

"I am," Daniel insisted. He bent, fumbling with his books. A shadow over him made him look up.

Stooping, meeting his gaze, Jolinar reached out a hand and tenderly touched his arm. "I am sorry for your loss. I am sorry this experience brings you more pain with my presence."

Daniel studied her up and down, memorizing every feature on her face, the full lips and luminous eyes before he forced himself to look away. "It's okay. I admit, it is a bit...unsettling, but you're not her." He paused, turning back to her. "Could I...could I speak with her? Sha're?"

Jolinar shook her head, and Daniel's hopeful expression fell. "I am sorry. Often, I talk to her, offer to let her surface, but she refuses."

"So...so she just sits there and watches this all happen around her?"

Again, the Tok'ra woman shook her head. "No. She does not even surface to observe. She has told me many times she no longer wishes to see the world." Jolinar paused, unsure of continuing, but she relented and added, "She grieves for her husband and her dead children."

Something shut on Daniel's face, eyes dulling as he looked away. "Oh."

"This is not your reality, Dan-yel."

"I know." Giving her a brief smile, Daniel rose, arms filled with books. "Look, uh...forget I asked. It was a foolish thing to wish for. I should be relieving Captain O'Neill in the control room. You never know when we'll arrive. I...I'm going to go now." The archeologist pretended to walk out of the chamber slowly, but Jolinar had a feeling he was fleeing as she suddenly found herself alone.

Footfall.

Whipping around, she pulled out a zat seemingly from nowhere. Her eyes darkened, realizing now a small panel was opened a crack.

"Come out and reveal yourself!" she commanded.

Jack O'Neill emerged from the panel, hands up. "Whoa! It's me!"

"Colonel O'Neill." Lowering her weapon, the Tok'ra nodded towards the wall. "How did you find this tunnel to the room?"

"Found it by accident. Was checking the halls with Anderson. Shouldn't be surprised. Hathor had a similar thing in her room."

Jolinar dipped her head slightly in agreement. "Yes. Many chambers of the royal court have at least one hidden alcove."

"Nice of you to mention it," Jack drawled, resting his hands on top of his hanging rifle. He looked around the room with a scowl.

"How much did you hear?"

Jack looked up, appearing as though he was going to deny it, but he sighed. "Enough."

Nodding, Jolinar studied the empty doorway where Daniel had departed. "He misses his wife."

"Well...he never really had a chance to...say good-bye, I guess." Jack's face took on a tired expression. "It's seems like only yesterday, not enough time for something he grieved and hoped for over three years." He stopped. Why was he even talking to her about it? It was Daniel's business, and he knew the archeologist wouldn't appreciate him spilling his secrets to anyone.

But the concerned look Sha're...no...Jolinar had on her face.

"I had to watch my mate die."

Jack briefly looked away, uncomfortable. "Yeah?"

"I never had a chance to say good-bye either. I was held down by Hathor's guards. I could only watch him scream before he left this realm of existence." Jolinar abruptly turned away. "I can understand his pain. Perhaps...if I had had a moment to tell him how much I valued his...his love, maybe I would have been more reluctant to take such extreme measures for revenge."

"Extreme?"

The Tok'ra gazed back at him, unflinching. "I am Jermak's favored consort. Or was, actually. Colonel O'Neill, how do you suppose I was able to climb to such a position?"

Jack weakly joked, "Playing cards?"

Jolinar gave a strained chuckle. "I can only wish, but no."

Jack was getting more and more uncomfortable with the conversation. He knew how to separate the two women but to hear her implying...wearing Sha're's face. Jack's only thought was that thank God Daniel wasn't there to listen to this. He stared back at her.

"You did what you had to do."

"Yes..." Jolinar rubbed her hands together, looking around the chamber. "But many times...I do regret." She gave Jack a small bow and left the room.

Jack stood there alone, studying the room and the few stray books Daniel had left behind in his haste. He gathered them, depositing them into his pack and hurried to catch Daniel.

SG1SG1SG1

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Dan felt his face pressed against a thigh. He could feel the hum of a Goa'uld ship under his body and froze.

"Easy. You're okay."

"John?" he croaked, feeling a hand brushing back his bangs.

"Yeah."

Dan bit back a sob of relief. He felt John carefully maneuvering him until he was propped up again. The scholar was too tired to stay straight and found himself leaning heavily against John, head braced under the hollow of his older brother's shoulder, arm draped around to keep him from sliding away. John carefully rearranged the coats over his legs, his shoulders, but Dan couldn't stop shivering. It was getting colder and colder, but he wasn't complaining. The chill was actually numbing his body's aches and pains to a dull, endless throbbing.

"Just lie still. Moved you to the chamber across from the control room. Was getting a little crowded there with everyone walking back and forth."

"We there yet?" Dan rasped and felt John's reply rumbling against his cheek.

"Not yet."

"H-how long I was out?"

"A few hours. We're halfway there, Dan." Slowly, John trailed two fingers up and down Dan's left arm. "Why don't you go back to sleep?"

"Mm." Dan fell silent, thinking. This was it. No turning back now. He knew, he knew he could have stayed behind, had considered the possibility that he would slow everyone down, but...

"I want to see it."

John's movements stopped. "Huh?"

"The end. I want to see the end." Dan stopped, suddenly feeling very foolish. What was he saying? "Sorry...never mind."

John's arm tightened around him. "Don't apologize. You'll see it."

Dan laughed bitterly. "Sure...you'll have to describe it for me when it happens. Just use good descriptions, okay? You can be very...vague."

"Me? Vague?" Dan could feel the snort raising John's shoulders in disbelief. "I can be very articulate at times."

Now Dan's laugh was easier. "You? Mister Neanderthal? I remember when you were making your vows. Sara said you were stuttering like a broken record."

"Well, maybe if someone hadn't gotten me so drunk at the bachelor party the night before, I would have been better prepared than an hour late for my own wedding." John gave Dan a light swat on his head.

Dan smiled, remembering. "You have to admit...it was a hell of a party."

John chuckled, sadly looking at Dan. "Yeah...you should be in charge of the celebration after we win."

Dan pretended to give it some thought. Weakly, he coughed, "How many girls?"

"Nah...married man, remember? Just some decent food. None of that sushi crap."

"Hey, some of us have more refined tastes."

John pretended to gag. "Refined? The last time you took me to some refined place was that sushi joint, and I was sick the whole day after that!"

"Who told you to put that much wasabi on it?"

"You said it spiced them up!"

"I said a little, John. A little. You never listen."

John nodded to himself. "Yeah...I guess I don't." He placed a hand on Dan's forehead.

"Why bother?" Dan turned his head away from the hand. "Don't waste your time with that, John."

"Hey," the older man said in a firm voice. "It's my time to waste, okay?" He felt the dry forehead, noting the slight temperature.

"You never listen."

John pulled his hand away at the resigned tone. "Dan?"

"What's going to happen when I go?"

Lowering his hand, John tilted his head to peer at Dan. He stiffened when he saw a stray tear falling down his cheek. "Hey..." He brushed a finger against the tear. John choked back the sound that wanted to erupt from the sight. "Hey...don't do that. You know how much I hate that..."

Shuffling, Dan moved away a bit from his brother, pushing back with his hands. He didn't go very far, the effort exhausting him. But John couldn't move. He watched his brother try to get away from him.

"I asked you a question, John."

John reached out to brace Dan so he wouldn't fall. "Here, let me."

"What's going to happen?" Dan said, his voice rising.

John jerked back.

"God...please, _please_ tell me you're going to listen this one time. Please..."

Hands dropping to the floor, John took a deep breath. "Dan."

"No. Don't give me some crap about how we're going to beat this, and we're going to walk away in the sunset with the freaking happy ending! What's going to happen, John? Huh?" Dan slumped, arms straight as he braced himself.

"I'm..." John choked out. "I'm going to bury you..."

Dan raised his head.

"Going to bury you and...and move on…just like I promised. I'm going to find the rest of our family, going to find Jerri and...and..." John fell back against the wall he was sitting against, covering his face with his hands. "And then I'm going to show them where you are." He pulled his hands away and glared at Dan, eyes glittering. "And then I'm going to move on." John spat out the words which left a bad taste in his mouth. "I'm going to move on with Sara, have busloads of kids and tell them someday what an annoyingly stubborn uncle they could have had! Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Yes."

John lowered his head to the heel of his hand, elbow propped up on top of his knee.

"Damn you, Dan."

Dan said nothing. He sat there, inches away from his brother, yet never feeling more alone in his entire life. A feeling he held on to, reminding himself what was to come.

"God damn you, Mutt."

Arms wrapped around him, startling him for a moment, but Dan recognized the embrace as safe. He felt being held tightly, the body supporting him shivering as if the future was blowing an icy wind down their backs. Dan heard John swallow, whisper to him to sleep, to rest, and Dan nodded. He didn't want to waste time, but he felt so tired, exhausted from trying to stay alert, to keep his words from rambling. He felt himself being eased back down again, heard a canteen cap twisting open and the soft bubbling sound of water dampening a cloth.

When he felt the coolness of the fabric on his forehead, he was already drifting away. So the hot tear falling from above didn't register at all as he went deeper into sleep.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Sam paused at the entranceway to the room. It was the last one she needed to check. The past few hours, nothing had come up. They had cleared all the chambers in the single deck cargo ship, but it was better to be safe than sorry. So she went back and forth, rifle balanced carefully in her hands, the muzzle entering the room before she did. And as usual, no one was firing back at her.

So she was surprised to actually see someone there.

The large form stood staring at the hieroglyphs gracing the walls with indecipherable script. At the sound of her arrival, the person turned to glance over a shoulder.

"Teal'c?" She lowered her gun. "For a moment there, I thought maybe someone had escaped from the cells."

"There is no one here, but I, Major Carter."

"Weren't you guarding the cells?"

"Major Ferretti came to relieve me."

Sam absently nodded. "Just doing one last round. Their Sergeant Siler and his teammates were busy double-checking the naquada device and the hard drive with the symbols. Didn't look like they needed my help." She studied Teal'c. "What about you?"

"I decided to examine the rooms carefully again."

"Did you find something?" She gave the chamber a quick scan herself but saw nothing out of the ordinary if one could call a barely furnished golden chamber traveling through space ordinary. She poked at a few stands that stood at various heights around the room, noting the wax that clung to the thin metal pedestals. "So what's wrong?"

"This is a room for kelnoreem." Teal'c turned clockwise, eyes observing the plain surroundings, bare of sitting furniture. "These places were not made for the Jaffa on my world."

Sam looked around the room again. "Really? I would have thought there would have been some rooms. The Jaffa need to kelnoreem on a regular basis, am I correct?"

Teal'c nodded once. "But the Jaffa did not often travel far enough to require a permanent room for meditation."

"Meaning, Ra's been going far past the scope of the galaxy to get more slaves," another voice interrupted.

Spinning around, Sam saw Daniel standing there with an armful of books.

"Uh...hi." Daniel walked in and looked around the room, his eyes tracing the edges of the place. "Do you know what this means?"

Sam cocked her head, puzzled.

"Ra seeks to rule more than what he does now," Teal'c theorized.

Daniel solemnly nodded. With a soft sad sigh, he sat on the floor, laying his books to the side. Sam and Teal'c joined him, forming a semi-circle.

Setting her weapon down, she rested her chin on her hands. "How much do you think Ra has taken in this universe already, Daniel?"

"I don't know. I don't think I really want to find out." Rubbing his eyes, Daniel patted around his pockets and pulled out his glasses.

"Has your vision not yet returned, Daniel Jackson?"

Concerned, Sam leaned closer, studying the red rimmed eyes, dry and dull. "Daniel?"

"A little eye strain." Daniel slipped on his glasses and blinked as he focused. He swiveled his head left and right, scanning the room. "We've seen battleships like Apophis has in our reality and death gliders. I know the Tok'ra mentioned small cargo ships, but look at this." He gestured towards the entire room with one wide sweep of his arm. "My God. Rooms to allow Jaffa to rest? For what? Long journeys? How many of these do you think Ra has? Hundreds of ships, filled with warriors, ready to fight and enslave billions and billions of people."

Sam fell silent, uncomfortable with the possibility. "Maybe that's why these Tok'ra are more cooperative."

"But they are not winning," Teal'c commented.

"I just don't understand," interrupted Daniel, his voice clearly bothered. "They had so much...I mean..."

"Some things seem a lot better here?" Sam guessed. "Like the Tok'ra being allies, fighting side by side?"

Daniel paused. "Some. It just bothers me to know that any possible combination of events could have led to this. The realities we've all encountered...they all ended with Earth as the Goa'ulds' trophy. We...it just feels like we're a fluke, a lucky draw."

"You once said it was our fate that prevented this, Daniel Jackson, by meeting the Asgards," Teal'c pointed out.

Daniel shook his head sadly. "It seems so simple, doesn't it? But now...I just don't know."

The three dropped into a bothered silence. Daniel picked listlessly at his notes with a glum look on his face.

"Nice," the dry voice entered the room before Jack came in and leaned against the doorway, arms folded. "Add a fire and marshmallows and it'd be just like home." The colonel arched an eyebrow towards Daniel. "So that's where you went. Was looking for you. You left some of your books behind in that last room."

Peering at him through his glasses, Daniel shrugged. "Oh."

"Oh?" Jack drawled as he sat down cross-legged in front of Daniel. Studying the three before him, he grunted. "Shit, I've seen cheerier faces in mug shots."

Carter leaned forward towards the colonel. "Sir, Daniel was saying about this room that—"

"I know, Carter. I know," interrupted Jack.

"I think I know what happened to the people who made the bracelets, too," Daniel added softly.

Jack nodded towards the pile of books. "You mean from the walls?"

"Yes. Rothman had some of the words correct although there were some terms he rearranged wrong. But…"

Frowning, Jack wondered why Daniel paused when the archeologist shook his head.

"Sorry, didn't mean to babble on like that."

_I wasn't complaining_, Jack thought as Daniel pushed his glasses back up, eyes squinting as he peered down at the notes.

"When the circle of twins are no more, all shall start all over again without delay." Daniel pointed to a folded sheet of rubbings that was tucked in with the notes.

Sam tapped at her bracelet. "Circle of twins? You mean…"

"Our bracelets," Daniel finished.

Jack grumbled. "Could we call them something else? For Pete's sake, they're not jewelry."

"I have no problem with them being called bracelets, sir," Sam said innocently, pretending not to notice the colonel's scalding look. She turned back to Daniel. "So these bracelets are not unlimited?"

Stretching his hand out in front of his face, Jack frowned. "You mean they're not going to last?"

"I don't know." Pointing to the notes again, Daniel looked frustrated. "Some of the writing was damaged either by erosion which is highly unlikely, age, or...Goa'uld."

"There were signs of battle from long ago," Teal'c agreed.

"But you guys never heard of this place?" asked Jack. "I mean, if it was clear the Goa'ulds have been there before..."

"The Goa'ulds at the time were probably more interested in getting new hosts or slaves," Carter hazarded a guess.

"Probably slaves since as hosts, they would have found out about this place," Daniel muttered darkly. "And there's an inscription that reads how they would protect their way through death if necessary."

Sam looked down at the gold circlet around her wrist like everyone else's. "Mass suicide?"

Daniel nodded with a grim look on his face. "Which would explain why an entire race has vanished without a trace in all realities. They must have decided to either leave this place or..."

"It would appear we owe them a great debt," Teal'c announced.

Jack's eyes tinted to a smoky color. "Well, we'd better not screw this up then, right kids?"

The team sat there, in the circle, in silence. Daniel brushed a finger against his notebook while Sam checked and then rechecked her weapon. Even Teal'c was silent, doing nothing more than sitting there, staring straight ahead.

As for Jack, he brooded, his mind working overtime as he played the plan over and over again in his head, like the countless times he had as he was patrolling the ship out of restlessness. Since the first time he'd crossed through the mirror, Jack had formed a map, a three dimensional display, outlining the next step, rotating it to get a better angle on things, not letting himself think about what he could have been or the possibilities walking around wearing his face. He focused only on his mental map, on the arrows screaming "Next move!" examining the possible routes of actions like pieces on a chessboard. He didn't dwell, not now, not like Daniel apparently was, despite his efforts. Survival. That was the only theme Jack allowed to run in his mind now.

"Colonel? Sir?"

Everyone raised their heads as one to greet Major Ferretti standing at the center of the doorway.

"We've arrived, sir."

Without another word, the SG-1 team packed up their stuff, Sam checking her pack again, Jack pulling out his rifle magazine clip to reexamine it, Daniel removing his glasses and folding them neatly into his pocket.

"Let's go," Jack just said, and one by one, they filed out of the room after Ferretti.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

The control room's monitor showed their destination in the center of the screen, a planet greener than Jack recalled his world was, looking innocently calm and serene.

"Are we home?" With some difficulty, Dan took another step forward until his brother's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Yeah. We're home." Staring at the planet, John had almost forgotten everyone else gathering behind him. It wasn't until General Maybourne whistled softly that he spun around and snapped to attention.

"Sir."

"Nice," murmured Maybourne. "Didn't think I'd ever get to see our planet like this." He darkened. "Any sign of Hathor's and Jermak's battleships?"

Jolinar crossed the chamber, headdress in place, the image complete. She bowed her neck slightly, ignoring the nervous twitches from some of the soldiers as she passed and glided her hand over the center controls that flickered bright white light with a pulsating beat. She slipped a hand device over her left palm and waved it across the controls on the surface panel. The standing trapezoid shape flashed, and red crosshairs flickered, gathering in the center of the screen like a target.

"Here," she said, pointing to the small gray moon trailing behind the earth at a distance. "They are behind your moon."

Jack walked up until he was next to Daniel, squinting at the pair of dots on the screen. "Can they see us?"

"If we can see them, they can see us," Jolinar said.

Hansen frowned. "Great. Can we dial for Cheyenne from here?"

"Yes. We have stopped traveling. Shall I contact the ships?"

A beep sounded.

Jack grimaced, motioning everyone to step to the side of the panel, out of sight. They crouched below the monitor against the wall. "Guess we don't need to. They came calling instead." When everyone was settled, he signaled to Jolinar to go ahead.

Jolinar stared at the screen as it wavered, until Hathor's face appeared.

"Where is Jermak?" Hathor demanded in Goa'uld, her eyes flickering left and right, searching.

"He was injured in the battle to rescue me and retrieve the _re'klya_, my lady," Jolinar said in her dual voice, bowing her head. "I return to bring him to your ship in hopes of healing him."

"Oh?" The Goa'uld queen studied her. "He still lives?"

"Yes, my queen."

"And he leaves you, a lower class consort to guide his craft?" Hathor sniffed in disgust. "Where is he? We wish to speak with him."

Jack, off to the side, resisted snorting. Daniel placed his finger to his lips to shush him, but Jack waved him off. While the colonel couldn't understand what the two women were saying, he caught Jermak's name and figured she wanted to know where he was.

_He's sort of incarcerated right now, honey_, Jack thought with a smirk as he heard Jolinar trying to talk in soothing words to Hathor.

"Where is our Chosen?" The Queen abruptly switched topics. "Where is our Beloved?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Jolinar saw Daniel Jackson and Dan O'Neill tense. John sensed Dan's agitation and dropped a hand over his brother's shoulder. Jack O'Neill only gave Daniel Jackson a questioning look, unsure of the words, but the archeologist seemed to be taking it all in stride, nodding to the colonel, indicating he was fine.

"He is resting," Jolinar hastened to say, drawing her eyes back to the screen. "We can bring him to Ra's ship when he arrives."

At the mention of Ra, Hathor paused. "We have heard his arrival is near, but we have yet to see his ship."

Hansen exchanged a look with Jack from her side of the screen. She mouthed "Ra?" over to him. Jack shrugged. He leaned over to Daniel, who was listening intently. "Daniel?" he whispered. "What the hell did she just say?"

"We also have prisoners," Jolinar went on. "Jermak, before he retired to his chambers to heal, requested they be moved to the mountain where the first Chapa'ai lay."

"They haven't seen Ra yet," Daniel whispered back, distracted as he waited for Hathor's response to Jolinar's request.

"He has told you about the uncovered Chapa'ai?"

Daniel winced. Apparently, Jolinar was not supposed to have been informed about its existence. He leaned forward, listening.

"Yes," Jolinar answered quickly. "He knew the prisoners must be kept on Tau'ri for the execution. He told me of its location."

"Then bring them to our ship. We shall hold them until Ra arrives."

Jolinar stopped. That wasn't how they'd wanted it. She had hoped Jermak's supposed orders would have been enough, but judging by Hathor's haughty expression, the queen did not care about Jermak's orders.

"I do not know, my queen," Jolinar said cautiously. "My lord wished it to be on the planet as soon as possible."

"I am your god! Would you disobey us and listen to him instead?"

Jolinar bowed, pretending to be frightened. She gave a questioning look over to the back of the room where the others were hiding and caught Daniel pointing to himself. "I'm sorry, my queen," she pretended to stammer. "We had thought you wished to have some time with...with..." Daniel nodded, ignoring Jack's hushed demands to know what they were saying. "We thought you wished to spend time first with the _re'klya_ before the execution. Jermak said we were to transport the prisoners while you do."

A long pause.

"Of course," Hathor purred, a smile curving her lips. "That would be very...acceptable. How thoughtful of Jermak."

Jolinar could see Daniel cringing, leaning back until he bumped against Jack. She moistened her lips with a quick flick of her tongue. "I will rouse my lord and let him know. We shall return shortly with the _re'klya_."

Hathor stared at Jolinar for a long moment before nodding. "Very well. Do not keep us waiting." With that, she vanished from the screen.

Jolinar waited, making sure the queen wasn't going to return with more instructions before she nodded her head.

"What did she say?" Jack demanded as soon as it was clear. He came up to her. "Well?"

"Are you crazy?"

Jack spun around to see Dan and John standing in front of Daniel. Dan was furious, one hand holding onto John for support. Daniel, meanwhile, was standing there all too calm.

"What the hell did you do?" Dan ranted.

Daniel didn't blink. "There was no choice."

"No choice? You could have thought of something else!"

"What? What?" Jack asked, getting lost in the conversation. He walked over to Daniel, quickly reading the almost guilty expression on the archeologist's face. A cold feeling stirred in his gut, and he snagged Daniel's elbow. "Daniel...what did you do?"

"I—"

"Jolinar has agreed to bring Daniel Jackson to Hathor's ship."

"_What_?"

Daniel winced at the bellow. "Jack—"

"No. Out of the question!" Jack slashed his hand across the throat. "You can kill the idea. Ain't going to happen!"

Jolinar shook her head. "Hathor did not want us to bring our prisoners to the first Chapa'ai. I could only appease her by saying we thought she wanted to spend the time with Dan-yel while we did the transportation." She gave Daniel a sad look. "There was no choice at all."

"There's always a choice," argued John as he reached out to grab Daniel. The archeologist took a step back, giving a wan smile. "Damn it, Daniel! You shouldn't be going over there just to give us some time!"

Jack clamped his mouth shut. John had said what he wanted to say. What was left? He looked over to Jolinar. "How soon before she wants him over there?"

"What?" John spun around to Jack. "What are you talking about?"

"Look—"

"No, you look! You're not going to ship him off to her, and that's that!"

Jack glared at him. "I don't think it's any of your business what we decide to do."

Daniel winced as the voices grew louder and louder. "Uh...can I say something here?"

"No!" the two O'Neills chorused, shooting twin smothering glares at Daniel.

"No, listen. Please." Pleading, Daniel waved his arms, stepping in between. "It's not going to come to that. We just needed some more time. By the time she even starts asking, we'll already be down on the surface, dialing up the symbols for the Asgards."

"And what if she comes asking for you right now?" John challenged.

Jack folded his arms waiting.

"Uh..."

Hansen jumped in. "Then I suggest we leave right now, correct?" She grabbed John by the arm, pulling him back. "Captain, get your team ready."

"But—"

"Now!"

John's jaw tensed, but he nodded. Storming out to get his gear, he only gave Dan a departing squeeze on his hand, stomping out of there without another word.

Daniel breathed a sigh of relief.

"This isn't over, Daniel," warned Jack.

Daniel sobered. "It's not going to happen, Jack. You know that. I'll be with you guys going to Ra's ship to set the explosives. She's not going to get near me."

"No, she will not, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c announced. "It will not happen, O'Neill."

Determined, Carter nodded as well.

"I have a feeling I'm going to need a stiff drink after this." Jack groaned. He studied his team carefully. "We'd better set off, then." He looked over to Hansen. "All set on your end?"

Gesturing towards the chamber, Hansen nodded. "We've got charges set for this ship to go off. Once your men see Ra's ship, they'll alert us. You do your thing, get into Ra's ship and bring those shields down for all the ships, and we'll dial up the Asgards. You get his shields down, and we'll be able to bring our ship closer."

Maybourne glanced at the screen. "Once those charges are set, Commander, they've only got a minute to get out of here before it blows." He turned to Sam. "You sure the explosion will be enough?"

"Should be; so long as we bring down his shields. It worked when we were on Apophis' ship," Carter said thoughtfully. "And the nuclear device we'll be putting there should add to the blast."

"Itsy bitsy pieces, Jack?" Daniel murmured.

The colonel only grunted.

Carter hastily stepped in. "Captain Ferretti and a few of our guys will be wearing the Jaffa armor and taking you all into the base. You just need a clear window to set up the symbols."

"We'll be covering the hallways for that, Major," Kawalsky promised as he shouldered his pack. "Louis and I will make sure no one comes through to the control room."

"I will be with Dan-yel and the general, waiting for the Stargate. We will stay here with Major Ferretti's men guarding Jermak. When the symbols are ready, we will be down. We will appeal to the Asgards for help," Jolinar said as she neared Dan. Her hand on his wrist, she steered him towards the exit.

"See...see you guys later," Dan waved weakly, shuffling out with the Tok'ra.

Maybourne paused before following. "Good luck." The general looked like he wanted to say more, but he left after a brief pause.

And it was down to Jack's team and Hansen. The commander gazed back at him.

"In case this doesn't work, Colonel—"

"We'll see you later," Jack interrupted her.

Hansen blinked. She gradually nodded and smiled tightly. "Right...see you later." She strode out of the room without another glance.

Jack gave the rest of his team a shrug. "So...you kids all set?"

Daniel and Carter mutely nodded. Teal'c only arched an eyebrow in reply.

"I don't give speeches," Jack warned.

"Thank God," muttered Daniel, receiving a light swat for it.

"And you..." Jack shook a finger at his friend. "Stay away from eye glowing women." He sobered. "Okay?"

Daniel tried for a reassuring smile, but it didn't convince Jack.

Giving up, Jack stood straighter and nodded to his team. "Let's get this done, kids. Fast and clean."

The team walked out of the chamber resolutely, passing those staying behind to set the charges.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

John watched as Dan leaned carefully against the Stargate chamber's wall, Jolinar and Maybourne framing both sides. When John came closer, Maybourne and Jolinar discreetly stepped away, giving them some privacy.

"Hey," the captain croaked.

"Hey," Dan replied softly with a short nod.

"Uh...once we give you the signal..." John fingered the communications globe in his pocket. "You get down there and just get through that Stargate as fast as you can. Don't stop for anything, okay?"

Dan bobbed his head once.

"I mean it, Dan. Just keep going. Don't stop. When you get to those Asgards, tell them..." John grasped Dan's thin wrists. "Tell them what those bastards did to our world, to you. Ask for their help."

"I'm not really good at asking..." Dan murmured with a crooked curve of his mouth. "For help, that is."

"I know." Flicking a stray bang away from Dan's face, John swallowed. "You have a tendency to try and do everything yourself. Don't this time, okay?"

"Okay..."

"I...I want to hear all about it when you come back."

"John—"

John hurried on, "All the details. Tell me about their ship, what they said, everything. Wanna...wanna hear it all from you."

Dan dropped his head. "John, I don't even know if—"

"You can." John gently gave Dan's hand a squeeze. "Just for a bit longer, Mutt."

"Captain, Jolinar has the ship in line with Cheyenne. We just got visual of the base," Hansen's voice floated out to the brothers. "We're getting ready to transport down."

Dan gave a gentle pat on John's arm. "You have to go, John."

John's grasp tightened. "I know. Just...Just come back and tell me all about it," John's voice cracked.

"I'll try."

"No. Not try. You gotta keep your promise," John said insistently.

"Fine...and you...you keep yours."

John gingerly pulled Dan close, arms around him and nodded against Dan's hair, chin brushing against the faint outlines of the _re'klya_. He didn't care if everyone was waiting. Or if they were staring. He only cared that Dan felt small in his embrace, shaking, trembling, hanging onto him like a lifeline. A tethering lifeline. One that was going to snap soon for both of them.

"I will, Dan," John whispered, stepping away quickly as he felt Dan weakly pulling back.

"Captain," Hansen called out quietly again with a tinge of regret. "Let's go."

"Good luck, Sammy. See you later, bro," Dan said and stepped back to lean against the wall again.

John stood there for a long time.

"Captain."

"John...go..."

Tearing away, John whispered, "Later." He walked towards the Stargate, towards Kawalsky and took the armor from his friend, ignoring the sympathetic expression.

"See ya, Doctor Danny," Kawalsky quipped lightly as he gave John another look as he handed him the chest plate, dark eyes following John's hands clipping it on with familiarity.

"Later, Charlie. You guys watch yourselves."

"Sure."

John didn't look over his shoulder at Dan. But he could hear Jolinar's whispered inquiry as she returned to his side and Dan's tired reply. John wanted to go back. But slipping on the armor, John felt the heavy weight of the Jaffa uniform dragging down his body and knew he couldn't.

It was time to pay his dues.


	45. Chapter 44

**CHAPTER FORTY FOUR**

Daniel kept his eyes forward towards the Stargate as everyone else waited for John to join them. When the shadow of a Jaffa hawk head helmet fell over him, he nodded. When he saw several hawk helmets' shadows reflecting on the wall, Daniel turned around just to be sure they were friends. When he saw other soldiers unperturbed by their presence, he swiveled back around, feeling a little foolish.

"Man," a muffled voice complained. "This thing smells funny."

Jack rolled his eyes, checking his weapon as he heard another reply just as the helmet melded over another's head.

"Lou, just hold your breath," a barely audible sounding Kawalsky replied as he shrugged, adjusting his chest plate. He hung his rifle behind him, adjusting the cloak to conceal it. Twisting around, Kawalsky staggered a little. "Shit, what the hell is this good for? Damn thing's heavy, and I can barely see a thing!"

Teal'c replied, "The Goa'ulds created the armor and helmets as a means of intimidation." He did a quick check of his own disguise, examined his staff weapon before confirming with Jack O'Neill and pressing the button to activate the helmet after the colonel nodded.

"Well, I'm intimidated," Captain Ferretti complained. "Intimidated enough to never want to wear one of these ever again. Right, Cap?"

John didn't say anything. He slapped a hand behind his collar, the hawk head zipping over to cover his face. Captain Ferretti and Kawalsky exchanged a somber look.

"Siler, you have the reactor?" the commander asked as she loaded her gun.

"Yes, ma'am."

"When we arrive down there, we'll be keeping our disguise until we can find the power conduits for you. So you make sure you keep that thing out of sight."

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Red team over here," Hansen called out, scanning the men gathered expectantly before her. She looked over to Maybourne. "We're ready, sir." She shrugged off her pack. "Everyone give your bags to the Blue team!"

The young soldiers looked at each other, hesitating.

"Well, you can't exactly convince them you're prisoners lugging around bags like you were going on a cruise," the general pointed out with a patient smile. "Hand them over. Just keep a sidearm or another weapon tucked inside your clothes. Each group has two zats. That's all we were able to salvage."

With great reluctance, the soldiers put down their packs; the jackets they'd worn over their vests were zipped up, weapons tucked inside.

Jack shook his head, his gut twisting as he realized many of the soldiers on Hansen's team weren't even over twenty years old. The roundness of a young face still clung to some despite the harsh conditions war made on their planet.

Kids. He hadn't noticed before when they were all dirty from battle, faces smudged with soot and ash. And at the time they were escaping, he was busy juggling a way to get home and making sure the people he went with were the same amount of people he returned with. But now, their faces cleaned up and ready, his stomach knotted up at their youthful expressions.

"Everyone set your watches," Jack said in a sharper voice than he'd intended. "On my mark." He raised his hand, waiting for everyone to get their timers ready. "Three, two, one, mark."

Dozens of little beeps and chirps answered.

Hansen covered the glass face of her watch with black masking tape as she tossed the communication globes across to a few soldiers. "Have your talkies set to the thirty-nine frequency. Hopefully the cables running inside the base are intact. They were underground behind the walls." Over her shoulder, she added, "Don't use the globes unless you're contacting this ship for the sighting of Ra."

"We ready?" Maybourne asked, scanning the room.

A few murmured yes, although many were fidgeting. Jack did his own check among his team, looking across to Major Ferretti standing at the doorway to see him off.

"Ring when you see Ra," Jack called out. Daniel gave a brief smile towards the major as well.

"See you later, Colonel."

Maybourne sharply saluted everyone. "God speed," he murmured.

Hansen stared at her CO, nodding curtly. She turned to Jolinar, waiting for her okay. At the commander's quick dip of her head, Jolinar tapped the Giza and watched as the Stargate activated.

Like a march, Kawalsky and Captain Ferretti stepped forward, leading the procession through the wormhole, the soldiers dutifully following behind them, playing the role of defeated rebels. Hansen tossed another look behind her shoulder, over to Dan, Maybourne and Jolinar before taking a deep breath and dove right in.

"Ladies first," murmured Jack as Carter approached the wormhole.

Sam made a face. "Thanks." She plowed right through.

Jack watched as Daniel took a deep breath of his own, like a diver preparing to leap off a cliff. So Jack quickened his steps, gave Daniel a quick quirk of a grin and ran right into the event horizon in front of the archeologist.

Daniel didn't stop, even though he wanted to look at Sha're—no—Jolinar one last time. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw John and Teal'c in their Jaffa disguises and knew he needed to stay focused. He closed his eyes, plunged his face in and felt the rest of his body following into an endless stream of light and sparks.

When he opened his eyes again, he was there.

SGC.

Or...what was left of it.

The ramp before them lay warped, the bordering rails twisted into a metallic wave which snaked all the way to the floor where rubble dotted the area. A DHD was set in the center of the room, cracks around the floor it stood over where a hole was dug out to ram the dialing device in. Smoke from gathering dust, concrete the size of cars cluttered the walls that were colored in different shades of gray. With a start, Daniel realized the walls were patched. The explosion that took the base would have made more damage than this.

They had been repairing.

Teal'c slipped around Daniel, his hawk helmet tall and steady as he went down the ramp, not thrown off balance by its contorted shape. He stood in front of them, turning his head around to examine the room and perhaps waiting for the guards they all knew would come when they arrived.

Daniel took the opportunity to examine the place before the guards came to greet them. He noted the uneven coloring of the room, the floor that was cracked, covered with rubble. He cast his gaze up and stiffened when he saw the observation room, half concealed under broken concrete. The glass that used to reflect the Stargate's glimmering event horizon was gone. Higher, he saw the briefing room, a lump in his throat as he realized there was nothing to see, the window also gone, but rocks and debris had covered the view completely.

"Shit," someone murmured and Daniel silently agreed. He could see Jack and Sam in front of him, stirring uneasily at the sight of the damaged base. Daniel himself had to swallow and remind himself this wasn't their reality, their base was in one piece back home.

"Jaffa kree!" someone called from outside the room, and Daniel ducked his head, sensing the others doing the same. He heard John take a step closer to him, Jack stepping back a step as well. Despite the crowded feeling, Daniel didn't complain. In fact, the tight feeling in his chest lessened.

The room slowly filled with the alert stances of a dozen Jaffa, their staff weapons trained on them.

"Jaffa kree!" Teal'c barked, his voice so arrogant, so angry, Daniel felt goosebumps riddling his arms. He kept his head down though and watched Teal'c's shadow go by him, heading down a misshapen ramp to the waiting guards.

"Kol Hathor gem tel Jermak?" one of the guards asked Teal'c if Hathor or Jermak was coming down soon.

Teal'c gave a negative. "Neet. Neteru Ra, som gak shoon." He gave a wave to the so-called prisoners, explaining how they needed to wait for Ra.

The other Jaffa sounded puzzled. "Shun Ra tel shen cho Tau'ri."

Daniel froze, his shoulders stiffening so much, he could have sworn his hands squeezed around the gun he held hidden within the folds of his cloak.

They'd said Ra was already here.

Here.

Teal'c took it all in stride and replied smoothly, "Kol Ra gem?"

The guard gave a negative. "Neet. Chelk cha. Chelk cha." Ra was still in his ship.

Daniel dared to raise his eyes, heart hammering loud as thunder. Ship? All they'd seen were Jermak's and Hathor's ships. He hadn't seen Ra's battleship. Were they lying? Or perhaps Ra had left for some reason? Had they missed their chance?

The other soldiers, still playing docile, gave no reaction to the news since they didn't understand the words. But Daniel's throat went dry in one swoop. And the calmer the soldiers were, the more oblivious Daniel could see they were, and the more his heart thudded hard against his ribcage. He kept his eyes down now more to hide the panic than to appear defeated.

The guards walked up and down the ramp, examining the prisoners with small grunts. Daniel could see their boots, clomping down charred, warped metal mesh as they walked by. Back and forth they went, studying the bent heads.

Suddenly, one of them stopped by Daniel.

"Sho cre?" the curious guard murmured and tapped the head of his staff weapon under Daniel's chin. The archeologist could feel the cold metallic surface digging under his chin, pushing it upwards, lifting his face higher, soon to reveal his appearance to the-

A loud thud sounded as someone bolted from the front of the group.

"Hak nol kree!" Teal'c suddenly shouted at the rushing sound of feet running. His bark was followed by the high pitched whine of a zat firing.

Daniel felt the Jaffa step away from him, running down the ramp. He dared to look up again and saw a soldier from Hansen's team, crumpled on the floor, minute seizures racking his body from the zat.

Teal'c folded his weapon and barked at the other Jaffa. "Wel to shak mi gon! Hak nol kree shu mak!" His friend scolded the other guards, accusing them of wasting their time when they should be moving them to cells before more tried to escape.

The guards bowed deeply at the harsh voice of authority. They parted as Teal'c led them out of the embarkation room, waving his staff weapon with a jerky motion, telling them to move out. Daniel followed behind Jack, making sure he kept his eyes down, but he could feel the guards' gaze boring into his back. Daniel looked up, tilting his head just a little, curiosity winning over survival instincts and took one more look around the room before they went through the gaping hole that used to support the heavy bulkhead doors.

Daniel could see the shattered glass window frame, bent double, half hanging off what used to be the observation window. He could see from his angle, the huge chunks of concrete that filled the room, one in particular smashing the console where he knew the usual technician always sat as he called out the chevrons. Gone, the computer covered under rock, wires sticking out like thin arms.

He felt John nudge him with his staff weapon, pretending to shove him cruelly, but Daniel was able to read the urgent warning from the captain about dallying. So Daniel slouched forward again, pinned his eyes to the bottoms of Jack's shoes and followed the rest of the people out.

As soon as they turned one corner, away from the line of sight of the embarkation room, Daniel raised his head like everyone else. Ferretti took down his helmet, making a face at his armor and checked the hallway ahead of him. The soldier looked back down at them and shook his head.

"No good. There are a bunch of Jaffa over there directing slaves."

Jack pointed to a door to their left. Teal'c opened it carefully, looked around then nodded back to Jack.

Footsteps marched from the hallway. The guards were leaving.

"In here. Now!" Jack hissed, hustling everyone inside the room. Daniel spun around as soon as he entered, seeing Jack shut the door just in time. Muffled, they could all hear the paced beat of boots thumping by the door. Silent, they waited, everyone leaning towards the shut door, sounds of marching passing. Even after it faded, no one said a word, waiting until Jack finally opened the door a crack. After a few seconds, he opened it wider, stuck his head out to take a look then ducked back in.

"All clear."

Daniel sighed, noting everyone else letting out a breath of relief. He saw Kawalsky, hoisting up the soldier who'd tried to escape, already stirring with a soft groan.

Hansen went over and tipped the soldier's head up. She checked him carefully.

"He okay?" Jack murmured.

"Yeah." Giving the more coherent soldier a pat on the shoulder, Hansen gave a grim smile. "Good diversion, Lee. It was risky though."

"Thank you, sir."

"I wouldn't recommend doing it again, though," Hansen added in a wry voice.

Lee chuckled weakly. "No, sir."

Motioning one of the soldiers to stay by the door, Jack waved to everyone else to gather closer. "Okay, who got a good look at the place before our welcoming committee came in?"

John's helmet glided down as he crouched to the floor. He rounded up some broken bits of rubble and made a small display, two rocks placed across from each other. "I saw two exits, same ones like in your base, Colonel." John pointed to the one on the right. "That one was blocked though. No door, looks like it was collapsed."

Sam pointed to the rock on the left. "Bulkhead doors were gone from here, sir. The initial self destruct blast probably took everything down."

With a scowl, Hansen nodded at the assessment. "Thought the blast would have done a lot more damage than that though."

"It's been repaired," Daniel spoke.

Everyone turned their attention to the archeologist.

Pointing to the rocks again, moving a small stone to the top, centered diagonally from the other two, Daniel indicated with his finger. "The walls. They were damaged, probably had caved in with the blast. But I saw different types of material meshed together like a quilt."

"Patch job," Captain Ferretti added grimly.

Daniel nodded, agreeing. "They're fixing this base." He looked over to Jack. "There's something else." Daniel moved his gaze to Teal'c.

The Jaffa spoke. "Ra is already here, O'Neill."

Both Jack's and Hansen's heads snapped up. "What?" hissed Jack.

"I told the guards we were ordered to deliver the prisoners to a cell and await Ra's word."

"They said there was no need to wait." Swallowing, Daniel looked around the room, a creepy feeling of being watched suddenly seeping into the place. "They said he was already here."

"I thought we only saw Hathor's and Jermak's ships behind the moons!" Jack said sharply in a low voice.

"That's all we saw, sir." Puzzled, Sam looked over to Teal'c, then John. "Could it be cloaked?"

John shrugged. "If it is, we wouldn't know then."

Kawalsky pulled out a communications globe. "Commander, should we warn Jolinar and the others?"

"Dan."

It was soft, but Daniel heard John murmur his brother's name and he swallowed. "Jack, Ra could be watching us this minute. He could see our ship and know we've come down here."

The colonel's face was grim. He was thinking the same thing. "Call them. Let them know. Tell them to keep an eye out for Ra's ship, but make no sudden moves." As Kawalsky nodded, moving to the back to talk to the others up in space, Jack turned to Carter. "How about our radios?"

Sam pulled out the radio from her pocket, fiddling with the dials. "I'm getting a faint signal." She tapped the mike attached to her collar, speaking into it. "Can you all hear me?"

A few nods around the room satisfied Jack. He pressed his earpiece into his left ear. "Okay. How does it look for us?" He looked over to Daniel. "Did they say when he was coming down?"

Daniel shook his head. "No. Just that he was already here."

"Sir?" Carter jumped in. "Machello's tablets had the symbols for Ra's ship to get past his maze—"

"But if he's not parked where we can see him, we can't go visit his place," the colonel reminded her.

Carter fell silent.

Jack waved his hand at her. "Forget about that for now. Let's get that gate going to reach the Asgards."

Hansen agreed. She sought out her engineer. "Siler, the Stargate had a Giza already in the center of the room we were in. Think you can still rig the reactor to it?"

"We can connect it to the original power cables linked to the conduits. We've just got to go down to our power room." The sergeant looped his arm through the bulky backpack. "They have it up and running again since some of the lights around here are working. All we've got to do is find a fuse box and connect this module to it. We'll have power for you in five minutes."

"I want it in two," Hansen interrupted.

Siler opened his mouth to protest.

"Sergeant, Ra's right over our heads already. I said two."

Reluctantly, Siler nodded. "Yes, ma'am. Two." Lower, he muttered, "We might blow ourselves up, but I'll get it to you in two."

Hansen smiled tightly. "Just give me juice. We'll worry about the rest later." She glanced down at the floor. She made an adjustment, a smaller rock in the center of their diagram. "The Giza was here. It's out in the open. Don't like it. If they come down in those teleport rings, we've got no cover."

Kawalsky rejoined the group, sticking an arm between Jack and Teal'c to point to the ground at various spots. "I saw some pretty decent sized boulders lying around, Commander. Should give us cover."

"For a few seconds," Hansen growled.

Jack stared at the makeshift map. "That's all we're going to have anyway." He looked steadily at Hansen. "Once we dial those symbols, everyone will know. You'll only have seconds."

"The general and the others will have to come down before we dial the symbols so they can be ready," mused Sam.

John scowled. "Then they'll need cover."

"Well that's what Blue team is for, Captain," Hansen reminded him sternly.

John bit back a remark and only nodded.

Jack checked his watch. "Okay. The layout is basically the same as in our base. We split up at the elevators. I don't think the snakes are too worried about repairing those. We get the doors open and then yours and Siler's team can climb down to the level you need without any problems."

"Agreed." Taking her pack, Hansen pinpointed the members of her team. "Lay in plastique along the junctions of the hallways. Once Green team gets the power boosted, we blow the explosives from the far end of the building. Draw the guards there. Should give us the seconds we need to dial the symbols."

"Jack, what about Ra?" Daniel insisted.

Teal'c spoke up. "If Ra is indeed already here, he may be watching and will uncloak his ship to send his men."

Nodding, Jack concurred. "Once his shields are down, we can use the teleport rings and beam up. Get into the maze and blow the controls. That should take every ship down. Knowing Ra, he'll try to escape when things start getting hairy. We get a nuke timed, leave it there as a going away present and when he's far enough-" The colonel didn't finish. The satisfied glint in everyone's eyes told him they'd drawn their own conclusions. "My team will stay with Blue team. Soon as we dial the symbols, we lay in ground fire." Jack tossed Daniel a communications globe. "Daniel, the moment Siler says we've got power, get Jolinar and the others down here and ready to go through, okay?"

Daniel pocketed the globe and nodded.

Hansen gave the room another look. "Well then...that's it. We split at the elevators."

As everyone retrieved their packs, checking their watches before sealing the shiny glass surface with either tape or like him, with the Velcro strap, Jack realized no one was joking or exchanging light banter to ease the tension. The terse waiting lingered in their postures as it did his, tensed, poised, all thinking the same thing.

This was it.

No turning back.

Jack just looked at his team, then at his twin. "Let's go."

Silently, the teams divided up to their assignments and crept out of the room one pair at a time.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Jolinar caught Dan just as he started to sag. The Tok'ra didn't flinch at the added weight, her enhanced strength able to bear the load as the scholar dropped to his knees, wheezing.

"Dan-yel?"

Maybourne sharply turned away from the controls. "What's wrong?"

"He appears to have worsened."

Dan couldn't speak. He tried to tell them he could hold on. He'd promised John and could still hear his brother's plea to wait for him, but his chest tightened as his mind shrieked in shrill voices of demons that had haunted him before and now were gradually released again. Dan could feel Jolinar's arm looped around his waist, but that was all he felt as his face burned with fever, arms trembling with a tingling sensation growing into a painful throb.

"Give...neuar...no long-...works..."

Voices or were they demons, consulted over his head as the hands holding him grew sharp as claws. He gasped, back arching as the arm tightened around his waist, threatening to cut him off at the legs. Another hand on his forehead pressed him to the floor of ice as the chill seared through his clothes into his back.

Something was pressed to his lips, forcing him to drink, and the sweet liquid soured in his throat as he fought not to swallow the poison. But a hand clamped over his mouth. He screamed instinctively, and the liquid went in on its own.

Drowning, drowning. Dan felt like he was drowning as more and more was poured in, voices first shrill now lowering to sounds that used to be familiar to him. But they still didn't make sense, and as he tried to get away, more liquid was poured down his mouth.

A rush of sound, the roaring of pain-sent chaos ringing in his ears deafened him to the voices surrounding him now, to the arms holding him fast as he lay there on the floor. He garbled out a scream, perhaps to John, perhaps to God, but the pain, the drowning didn't stop, and he found himself floundering in a flood of his own doing.

And then...

"Dan-yel?"

The soft stroking of his cheek roused him to the sounds of the ship's vibrating hum and of people surrounding him, shifting feet nervously.

"Doctor O'Neill? Dan?" Maybourne's worried voice loomed over him as well, and Dan winced, realizing he must have freaked everyone out.

"We had to give you all my remaining neuar," Jolinar explained as she helped him up. "You would not rouse or calm otherwise." Her voice layered with the accent and the duality of her symbiote was openly concerned. "It appears to have relieved the symptoms but did not ease you to rest."

"Don't need rest," Dan rasped, shaking his head slowly. He regretted the gesture as the darkness did a loop, and his knees buckled. This time, Maybourne caught him. "H-how...how long?"

"Wasn't even five minutes," the general assured him.

"Uh..."

Dan stiffened at the unknown voice until Jolinar spoke calmly.

"Yes, Lieutenant Booker?"

"We've gotten word from the teams below." The soldier sounded apologetic for barging in. "They heard Ra was already here."

Dan's knees wobbled again. "God...do...do we see him?"

Jolinar's scent of flowers and perfume left Dan's range, her dress tinkled as she walked towards the controls. Dan heard the controls beep and the whoosh of the screen being turned on.

"No. I only see Hathor's and Jermak's ships."

"He must be cloaked then. Damn."

"Captain Kawalsky said they were going to start phase one now and get Siler to the power room to work on the naquada reactor." Booker could be heard walking closer. "Uh...is Doctor O'Neill—"

"I'm fine," Dan cut in. "What about Ra?"

"Colonel O'Neill said once the Stargate is working, he's sure the alarms'll go off everywhere. Ra will probably uncloak to beam his reinforcements down."

Dan snorted. "Probably. God, we're going into shark infested waters blindly without dipping our toes in first to see what's biting!"

Jolinar's arrival by his side was heralded by the chimes of beads on her dress. "It is a logical assumption as to Ra's actions."

Sighing, Dan nodded, too exhausted to even try arguing there was no way to predict the bastard's next move.

"We will watch for Ra's presence," Jolinar informed Booker.

Dan could hear them talking a bit more, but he chose to ignore them as he signaled Maybourne he wanted to sit. Easing down, he felt the general leave to talk to them and took the moment to send a prayer out to his brother and friends.

He could hold on a bit longer. He could.

_I'll keep my promise, John. For God's sake, keep yours._

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Major Ferretti was debating as to whether or not he was glad to be stuck with guard duty or wishing he was down where the excitement was. Leaning by the door, ears open for any sound from within the cells, he checked his watch. It had only been half an hour, yet time stretched to what felt like eternity.

"You think they're finished yet, sir?" Anderson checked his watch too after Ferretti.

The major grunted. "Doubt it. Probably just got started."

"Man, I hate this." Sighing, the tall sergeant folded his arms and peered down the hall where his comrade Booker had gone. "Sort of wish I was down there, sir."

"Careful what you wish for," murmured Ferretti. The major grumbled when his watch beeped. "Time for another check. Anderson, stay by the door."

"Yes, sir." The sergeant dutifully shifted, standing at the doorway as Ferretti punched the combination to get in.

Ferretti paused right at the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness of the room, mentally wishing they'd had the foresight to bring in some lights to brighten it. He'd always hated dark places. Way too many corners and holes for the bad guys to hide as they set their target sights on their heads. Ferretti's rifle came up the instant the doorway glided down.

The door effectively sealed away the light, and the single stone glowing was all Ferretti had left. The major stopped at the side of the cells, reluctant to proceed further until he was sure the doors were still shut. When he saw they were, he sighed with relief. Silently, he did a count of the Jaffa as part of the routine.

_One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, where's the other...oh there. Sneaky bastard, trying to trick me. That's eight, nine—_

"You will never win, Tau'ri."

Ferretti trained his rifle immediately on the Goa'uld general and his sneer marred with broken teeth. Already, the swelling from John O'Neill's hands had gone down some, but the Goa'uld still had a long way to go before his usual appearance was restored. Ferretti smirked.

"Damn. He really did a number on you, didn't he?"

Jermak's eyes flashed, and Ferretti's hands tensed over his weapon. "Filthy human."

Ferretti raised his right arm, his left gripping the rifle and pretended to take a sniff. "Now I resent that! I took a shower before I left! You on the other hand..." He waved his hand in the air and pretended to gag. "Whew! Haven't you snakes ever heard of deodorant?"

"You will not win."

"Sorry," Ferretti drawled. "But we sort of won already. We're just having an encore performance—" He stopped.

Nine.

He'd counted nine Jaffa.

Immediately, Ferretti zeroed in on the open vent the guards had been blocking before.

_Shit. Shit!_

Ferretti whipped back to the other cell, the guards staring back at him stoically. He gave another count. Nine. Still nine.

"Move back!" Ferretti ordered. "Now!" He didn't look as he yelled over his shoulder. "Anderson! Get Booker and get in here!" Towards the Jaffa, Ferretti waved his gun. "Back! I know you don't speak English, but I think Mister Gun here speaks the universal language. Back!"

The guards didn't move. In fact, a few of them smiled back at the major.

"What the hell is so funny? Anderson! I said get your ass in here! Anderson!"

No response.

Ferretti spun around, slamming his palm down on the panel of symbols to open the door. Rifle out, he didn't exit yet, scanning the hallway. He could see to the left, Anderson's boots peeking out on the floor where he was still standing.

The major relaxed. "Anderson, damn it. Didn't you hear me calling—"

The Jaffa who had held up the unconscious sergeant, suddenly appeared, slamming the soldier into Ferretti. The major's rifle shot up, but it was sent skittering across the hall.

Ferretti opened his mouth to bellow but a fist crashed into his jaw, slamming down with such force he could have sworn he heard something crack. He retaliated, his own hand bunched to a solid fist and swung hard. It met hard muscle and barely budged it. The Jaffa returned with another fist, swinging into his solar plexus. Ferretti felt his feet lift above the floor before he fell hard, too dazed to even hear the door being opened again.

Voices in Goa'uld, angry, short tempered, barked commands as Jaffa marched out, now free. Ferretti's head listed as he lifted it up. He was just in time to see Jermak spit at the ground near him, eyes flashing angrily.

"After I kill the Shova and the _re'klya_, I shall disembowel each and everyone of you myself!"

_That doesn't sound good_, Ferretti thought fuzzily as he saw his own rifle zeroing in on his face. The heated blow slammed the back of his head, and he felt nothing as he and Anderson were dragged into the cells where the Jaffa had been imprisoned.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Jack paused as he saw Hansen's team and Siler's team duck into a room. The commander looked across the intersecting hallways to where Jack was before she slipped in. Jack took the signal, grabbing Daniel by the Kevlar vest wordlessly and hauled him into the room. The archeologist didn't protest the treatment. The colonel made a quick check, satisfied as he saw his groups following without question. The door shut quietly, and Jack pressed an ear to the wall, listening as more Jaffa marched down the hallways, jaw tensing as he also heard other voices, speaking in English, moaning as they were forced to stay on their feet.

"Colonel." Hansen's voice came through quietly in his earpiece. "We're about three feet from an elevator shaft. "We're going to try for it."

Jack pressed his ear against the door again, making sure there were no more sounds outside. He hissed into his speaker tacked to his vest. "Got ya. Give me a five count before stepping out." He nodded curtly to John and Kawalsky. "We'll watch your backs for as long as we can before heading for the embarkation room again."

"Roger."

Jack opened the door a crack, tracking Hansen as she crept out of her hiding place, her men following closely. She paused at the elevator doors, motioning them to pry it open.

"Okay," Jack whispered. "One by one. Kawalsky, watch the hallway from the east, Carter, Daniel, from the west. Teal'c, you and I've got the north direction." He looked over to John. "You and Captain Ferretti can stay to the south, facing the direction we came from. Keep your helmet on. They'll pause when they think it's one of their own people." He patted the back of Daniel's pack hovering next to his face. "Set up some plastique at your post. Set the timer for ten minutes. Don't use all of them. Make sure we have some left for Ra."

John nodded, a hand rubbing his armor with a scowl before he activated his helmet.

Jack eyed the door again, watching as Hansen and the others struggled to pull the double doors apart without any noise. He pulled down harder on his black wool cap, wondering if all this dark clothing was really any use with the flickering lighting working all around the halls. Walking around in practically daylight was making his skin crawl. He mentally sighed, deciding he'd complain later. "Okay..." The colonel did a mental count as he knew his teammates must be doing as well. He raised his hand, telling them to wait. Then at the right moment, he lowered it. "Now..."

The door cracked open wider, everyone creeping out, bent double as they plastered themselves against the corners. Kawalsky gave a nod before going deeper down the hallway towards the east, planting himself at the other corner. He looked back towards where the rest were and nodded, giving a thumbs up.

Jack watched Daniel and Carter heading for the east hallway, dark eyes tracking his teammates, relaxing only a little when they arrived without incident at the next corner. He saw Daniel pull out his gun, crouching down in the corner, peering carefully further down the hall.

Carter gave a nod.

With a brisk wave, Jack signaled the others to go to their posts, soldiers from their teams following their examples and planting themselves in other corners to watch for Jaffa approaching, setting up the explosions they needed for the diversions. Jack could see Carter pocketing the timer, the radio she would use to send the signal to start the countdown. Everyone poised ready, guarding the area where Hansen and Siler were beginning to herd soldiers into the shaft. Jack looked back down the hallway as Teal'c kept his attention in the direction they were guarding, the hallway they had all came out from that led back to the embarkation room.

Hansen gave Jack a brisk nod before slipping in last, grabbing the cables to begin the climb down. The elevator doors, with no one holding them apart, screeched shut with a high pitched scratch like nails on a chalkboard.

Jack winced. It wasn't very loud, but if he could hear it from his direction—

"Shan chak!"

They heard it.


	46. Chapter 45

**CHAPTER FORTY FIVE**

Jolinar eyed the screen intently, occasionally glancing to check on her friend. General Maybourne, pacing back and forth, hands clasped behind him, kept stopping either beside Dan or her, muttering under his breath.

"Must you?" she inquired as she adjusted the controls, maintaining their distance from Hathor's and Jermak's ships. While the Tok'ra was glad the ships had not moved from behind the moon, it also disturbed her greatly. News of Ra's arrival had bothered her. She constantly scanned the space before her, wishing there were some way to seek out a cloaked ship. "You pace constantly. It is...disturbing."

Maybourne skidded to a halt. "Sorry, my dear." He sighed, punching a fist into his palm. "I don't like waiting; that's all."

"You're giving me a headache, Harry. I don't like that," wheezed Dan as he drew his jacket tighter around his thin frame.

The general gave Jolinar a worried look before dropping down to the scholar. "How are you feeling?"

Dan gave a half cough and snort. "Feel like shit. How was your day?"

"Could be better."

"I could use a drink," Dan returned.

"There is more water in the canteen, Dan-yel."

Both the general and Dan laughed dryly. "Uh, Jol...that's not...never mind."

Harry rose to his feet and checked his watch. "Did I mention I hate waiting?"

"Hundreds of times," Dan sighed. "Any more word from John or the others?"

"No, Dan-yel."

"Damn." The young man fell silent.

Jolinar shook her head and returned her attention to the screen. Her large eyes hooded as she searched the endless black sea of stars, trying to locate the impossible.

"How are we going to find him?" Maybourne asked in a low voice.

"Only if Ra was to uncloak himself so he might use the Chapa'ai," she whispered back.

"Look, you don't have to whisper," Dan called out, annoyed. "I am still aware enough to know what's going on. You can speak up."

"Yes," a droll voice said. "Speak up so we may all hear."

Jolinar and Maybourne spun around, a zat gun in her hands, a gun in his. They froze when they saw the ten Jaffa, Major Ferretti's men held at gunpoint with their own rifles.

"Lower your weapons before I shoot the _re'klya_." Jermak aimed his confiscated rifle towards Dan. The scholar snorted.

"I'm dead anyway. They're not going to—"

Both Jolinar and Maybourne dropped their weapons. They landed loudly, echoing in the small control room.

Dan's shoulders slumped.

Chuckling, the Goa'uld general was waving his confiscated rifle towards Maybourne. "Fascinating weapon, is this not?" Jermak pretended to turn the rifle around in his hands, interested. "Using primitive projectiles. Quite painful I am told, a lingering death unlike our staff weapons. Do you suppose their deaths would be painless if I shot each part of their limbs?"

Jolinar glowered at him. The general chuckled once again.

"Beautiful, even in anger and in your hate for me. Tell me, is Jolinar your real name? Or shall your epitaph say something else?"

The Tok'ra said nothing.

Tsking at her, Jermak shrugged. "Perhaps it is time for another consort, one who will not betray her lord or gods."

"You are not gods!" the woman spat out. "You are all beasts who steal bodies for your own!"

"And you are not?" challenged Jermak. He brandished the weapon at the three, clucking as Dan fell against Maybourne when the guards pushed him. "You are not what you seem either, woman."

"I do not steal." Jolinar pulled back her hand, but not before a Jaffa snatched the hand device off her palm and handed it to Jermak with a bow.

"No, yet you reside in a body not your own, perfectly willing to let your race die simply because you do not want to take in order to survive." Laughing, Jermak strolled over to the controls. He waved it over the angular device, the screen lighting up. Hathor's expectant face appeared.

_"Lord Jermak, we were told of your injuries."_ Her eyes flickered over to Jolinar and Maybourne with curiosity. Her head tilted to the side, mouth curving upward. _"We see the situation has changed."_

Jermak smiled, looking like a cat who swallowed a canary. "Yes, our queen. I also come bearing gifts." With an abrupt yank, he tugged Dan close to him, shoving him to the controls. The scholar barely made a sound, gritting his teeth as he was slammed into the hard surface.

_"Beloved,"_ Hathor breathed._ "We have so missed you."_

Dan couldn't see the mad gleam in her eyes, but he heard her soft tone. He spat, "I haven't!"

The eyes flashed. _"You are still stubborn."_

"Well, I wasn't really impressed with your personality," Dan said bitterly. "Either of them."

_"Had you been more accepting, perhaps we would not have been forced to treat you so harshly, Beloved."_

Dan turned his face away, the disgust clear in his expression.

_"Perhaps you will be more open once we heal you—"_

"What?" Jermak pushed Dan aside. "We were to give him to Ra!"

Dan stumbled into Jolinar, stiffening. "If you think I'm going back there," he hissed. Brave words, but his hands curled around Jolinar's arms fearfully. Even when she steered herself to stand in front of him, away from Hathor's view, Dan felt the sour taste of panic coursing through his veins, flooding his mouth.

_"We will give him the Shova. When we spoke with your consort, they were being sent below to the first Chapa'ai—"_

Jermak thumped a fist on the controls. The screen flickered. "They go in guise as our Jaffa! They wish to sabotage our Chapa'ai like they did the other! They also wish to destroy Ra's ship!"

_"A desire you yourself have considered,"_ Hathor said coyly. _"We shall still obtain our goal."_

"Not if they destroy his ship! We need his ship to maintain our power!" Jermak gestured wildly at Dan and the others. "We give them to Ra and offer to hold the execution on my ship! He will listen to your invitation and come into our assassins' sights! We will rule!" He pulled Dan away from Jolinar. The scholar swore, weak fists flailing at the general.

_"Do not harm him!"_ Hathor said, stunning Jolinar and the rest of the soldiers. _"Jermak, you harm our Chosen, and we will sever our ties!"_

The general stopped in disbelief. "You would relinquish our alliance for a _re'klya_? A mere Tau'ri?" He shook Dan. The archeologist gritted his teeth, fists clawing Jermak's hold without success. "He will not even survive the next rising of their sun!" The general backhanded the scholar. Dan dropped to his knees, heaving.

"He is nothing but a filthy _re'klya_ for Ra's amusement!" Jermak aimed his rifle at Dan.

The ship rocked as her battleship fired off their bow.

Jermak gawked at her on the screen. "My queen, you have truly gone mad..." He lowered the weapon. "You would...you would dare rally against me? After what I gave you?"

_"We have no use for lower class generals,"_ Hathor said haughtily. _"We desire a suitable pharaoh for our reign."_

"You can have the world! My loyalty!" shouted Jermak as he swept an arm around the chamber. "This Tau'ri...all of them! They are worth nothing. Nothing! I will destroy Ra for you, and the system shall be ours!"

_"They will destroy Ra for me,"_ the Goa'uld queen intoned, and her face vanished, replaced by a scene of space.

Jolinar tensed as she saw a flash of light, fire shaping into a slanted plane of the side of a pyramid. It approached Earth at high speed, the flame growing as it came closer, slowly snaking around to a shape of—

"Ra," Jermak stumbled back in shock as the space where the flame was, shimmered and became a mother ship, huge, dwarfing his and Hathor's combined. As it approached the atmosphere, the entry point started a burn that made the edges glow like the sun. "He is already here?'

Hathor's image returned, a smirk on her red lips. _"Yes, he arrived before you and cloaked after announcing his presence to us. We had an opportunity to...encourage him to go down to the first Chapa'ai and take what we have given him, slaves by the hundreds, toiling away to repair the Tau'ri base and all its technology. He was quite...pleased." _She licked her lips, looking sated. _"Very pleased."_

"He will not grant you your throne again! He seeks another queen," Jermak argued.

_"One he believes is among the slaves we offer him in the human base. One he will not find. The Tau'ri rebels will surely destroy him by then."_ Hathor laughed. _"Since our promise of more Jaffa present on the base was untrue."_

Jermak jerked Dan to his feet again. The scholar cursed at him, twisting to break free. "Ra would want this _re'klya_!"

_"He will not get him. He will die before we will give him our Beloved!"_

The general was practically frothing in the mouth now. "Beloved? Madness! This is all madness! You will give it all up for this piece of garbage?" He shoved Dan to the controls again.

The ship shook as another shot from her ship struck the apex of his vessel.

"Think carefully, my queen!" Jermak said, lowering his tone soothingly. "You were forced to seek another host before it was primed, forced to leave your host body of thousands of years because of this _re'klya_. He spurned you, insulted you by refusing and then killed your host body. Do you not remember? You are not thinking correctly. Ra rations the sarcophagus to only when he arrives, and it pains you."

_"I..."_ Hathor frowned to herself._ "I..."_

Jermak smiled lazily, the expression gruesome with his bruised face. He could tell Hathor was doubting, the host body must have still been struggling, the host not broken down enough without the regular slumber from a sarcophagus. He held Dan tightly by the arm, chuckling as the human struggled uselessly. "You know I am right, my queen. Follow the plan as we intended, and I promise...we shall find you a perfect host to heal in, the golden chamber yours for the taking."

Hathor's eyes dulled with confusion.

Dan, sensing the silence as bad, hissed to Jermak. "Wol me krak Jermak. Shum neteru Ra shi cak tol."

His words infuriated the general, and with a howl, Jermak grabbed Dan by the collar and slapped a quick hand across the scholar's face. Dan's head lolled to the side.

Hathor's eyes blazed with white fire at the sight. _"Jermak stop! Shen tok kree!"_

"I do not need you!" Jermak snarled, throwing Dan to the floor. Jolinar dropped to the ground, Maybourne already checking on his friend.

"Dan-yel, what have you done?" the Tok'ra whispered as Jermak ranted, waving the image of the queen away, his hand gloved with the ribbon device thrust into an alcove in the controls. The ship lurched as she fired again, but he ignored it, barking at the screen to his own battleship.

"Trust me," Dan whispered as he gasped, pain returning. His fingers tightened around Jolinar's hands.

Jermak's small ship was soon blocked by his own battleship, putting the cargo ship between it and the planet. Jermak's Jaffa stirred uneasily, unsure of their lord's actions.

Maybourne softly smiled, understanding. "Damn, O'Neill. Devious."

The scholar's lips curled upward in a half smirk. "Let them fight it out and destroy themselves. Save us the trouble."

Jolinar blinked, confused.

The general waved at the controls, returning to Hathor's furious face now.

_"Jermak! You wish to dispute for this planet?"_

"You disputed first, my queen!" The last word, Jermak drawled out, deliberately twisting her title to an insult. "You are no longer in your senses! You are not fit to rule!"

_"Shui chi Jermak! Release our Beloved, and we will spare you!"_

Jermak's battleship fired. The vibrations of the blow shook even the little cargo ship.

_"Treachery!"_ Hathor screamed into the screen. _"This is treachery! We are your god! We gave life to you! You dare? YOU DARE?"_

"Jaffa! Tok chee!"

With a cruel yank, Jolinar and Maybourne were brought up to their feet, dragged away from Dan. The general's shouting didn't faze Jermak as he pulled Dan to him, making sure Hathor could see.

"That was not the only thing I dare," Jermak hissed, his ribbon device over Dan's face now.

_"Jermak—"_ Hathor's eyes burned white. _"We warn you..."_

A hot red glow floated over Dan's face as Jermak's hand device came to life. The general stared at Hathor, daring, Dan squirming as the discomfort grew and grew.

"Stop!" Jolinar cried, the guards jerking her and Maybourne back.

Dan could hear the others protesting, but he didn't know why they were upset. The warm beam was actually comforting, numbing the aches along his body. His hands that were pulling at Jermak's, dropped to his sides, body growing limp. His mind grew foggy as the sound of the device grew.

"You will never get him, my queen," hissed Jermak.

Dan gasped as the whining of the ribbon device grew, blocking out his friends' shouting. He jerked, body spasming as the_ re'klya _devices burned in his head. Now his hands flew up to his face, clawing at the discs, Jermak's laugh close to his ears.

"I had so wanted to do this personally," he whispered.

"Jermak, no!"

Dan couldn't tell if it was Jolinar or Hathor who cried out. All he knew was the pain, the agony as his discs shifted, twisted of their own accord. He would have fallen to his knees had it not been for Jermak's fist over his collar. He felt the metal tips of the ribbon device, the fingers digging into his left temple. Slowly, as if time stretched, he felt something give.

And Jermak pulled the left device out.

Dan screamed.

The laughter that rang around him, in the midst of someone screaming in denial hurt like knives as his body erupted into a red wall of agony. Strength gone, chest seizing, Dan fell to the floor with a mere yank from Jermak.

Dan screamed in his mind, his mouth too busy desperately emptying the pain out. He felt Jermak shove something round and small into his palm, squeezing his hand shut around it. He felt the guards drag him a few feet, positioning him within the teleport rings. The ship rocked as Hathor fired upon both his battleship and the cargo ship. But Jermak paid no heed as he gave Dan a pat on the cheek, ending it with a harder one. Lost in his agony, Dan couldn't respond.

Dan heard the sizzle of rings forming around him.

"This _re'klya_ belonged to Ra," Jermak said coldly. "And it shall be to him that I return this."

_No! No, I'm not going back! No!_ Dan screamed in his mind as he felt the beam seize him. Ironically, the last device from his right temple fell out as well, and his eyes flared with color. Sight returning in painful, torturous clarity, Dan caught the grief-stricken pair of faces and Jermak's smirk before he was yanked away.

_John!_

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Jack jerked to the side as he felt a bolt slam into the wall he was pressed against, Teal'c already firing. In the distance, the colonel heard Carter shouting, Daniel's weapon firing, the short bursts of explosions pitiful against staff weapon fire.

"O'Neill!"

Jack saw the other soldiers coming in from his counterpart's direction. John raised the staff weapon he had and fired three shots towards the ceiling. The fragile renovated structure crumpled like clay, falling on the newcomers. Jack heard them scream before they were cut off abruptly.

Another staff weapon fired, the flare sailing past John and Ferretti and landed over Jack and Teal'c's heads. A large stone from the damage crashed on top of Jack. The colonel grunted as his chin banged into the floor.

"O'Neill!"

"Colonel!"

"Jack!"

"I'm okay!" he spat, getting up with a grimace as he felt something warm dripping down from the back of his neck. Great, just what he needed.

"Colonel!" Kawalsky pointed to the hallway he was guarding, his own teammates having retreated to where the captain was. "We got some guests!"

_Crap._

A dozen Jaffa, trying to hide behind a corner were firing without pause, many of their shots sailing far and landing too close to Carter and Daniel. He could see Daniel jerk back before the archeologist twisted around again and fired without hesitation. But when Daniel was forced to curl into the corner, arms over his head as the return fire forced him to stop, Jack gritted his teeth. He yanked out his radio, ripping it off his vest.

"Hansen!"

The commander responded instantly. "What is it? We heard the gunfire."

"We've been compromised! We have to pull back! I'm going to get Carter to blow the hallway and block their way to the elevators!"

"We can get back up there and—"

"No!" Jack ducked as another stray shot zipped by him. "Do your job! We'll pull back to the embarkation room and seal ourselves in!"

"Colonel, you can't hold them forever!"

"Then don't screw up. Get the power running now!"

The radio fell silent, and Jack knew Hansen wasn't heading up.

"Pull back!" Jack hollered. He could see Kawalsky shouting for his team to pull back, one soldier who wasn't fast enough, jerking as he was struck from behind and fell. The captain didn't even look back, his face dark and stormy as he was forced to leave him behind. "Carter! Get your ass out of there! Blow the hallway!"

"Sir?" Carter dove back when the staff weapon blasts targeted her now. Daniel responded by firing both guns down the hallway. Both fists gripping the weapons, Jack could see they barely made a mark.

"Get back here! Toss some grenades over there! We're blowing all the way to the embarkation room!"

Kawalsky must have agreed because he pivoted around, two fists full of grenades and tossed them down the hall he'd been watching. The twin explosions actually rocked the entire area, and Jack saw the Jaffa from the other directions falling to the floor.

"Now, now, now!" Jack whipped his hand out towards the others as John and Ferretti did the same, the next pair of explosions adding more soot and smoke to the previous blast. Two hallways were now blocked. "Carter!"

Daniel got to his feet as Sam kicked two grenades down towards the guards. He flinched as the bright lights burst with fire. He could see parts of the ceiling collapsing, and he could have sworn he heard screams that were not only Gou'ald but human as well. Daniel froze. "Sam."

"I know, Daniel!" Grabbing his sleeve, Sam tugged at him. "We only blocked their way!"

"Carter! Jackson! What the hell are you doing still standing around?"

Daniel gulped and spun, doggedly following after Sam as everyone took the only path left, back to the embarkation room. He heard John shouting a warning as another grenade was tossed, sealing the junction behind them. The elevators were blocked. But it also meant there was no other way out except by Stargate.

Perhaps it was the explosions or the adrenaline pumping due to the battle. Daniel didn't realize the vibrations he felt under his boots were growing. He ran into the embarkation room, Jack already barking his next order. John whipped around at the voice.

"Carter, climb up to that booth and see what we can use." Jack pointed to John. "You and Ferretti block that doorway! You see them break through, blast the hallway down! No one comes in!"

_And no one goes out_, Daniel thought. He shook his head, heading for the DHD, brushing away the dust and pebble shards that had rained down during their activity. He twisted around, seeing Sam being helped by John and another soldier into the observation room.

"Computers are down, sir!"

"Big surprise!" Jack shouted back, rifle trained on the door. "Can you fix it?"

"There's only one CPU tower intact! No monitor! I might still be able to get one console to work off the hard drive—"

"Carter, I asked you a question, not for a lecture!"

"Yes, sir!" Sam set to work, shoving aside rubble, gritting her teeth as she dropped her backpack, tools tossed out as she ducked under the station, already at work.

"Kawalsky, how many?" Jack asked as he went over to Daniel's location, eyeing the DHD. Daniel nodded at his silent inquiry. It was still working.

"Lost five," the captain just said shortly, his tensed jaw telling how much that number didn't sit right with him. He ducked his head out the door. "Louis, how many more of these bombs we got left?"

Jack's eyes narrowed when Ferretti replied back, voice faint. "Aside from that nuke we got on that ship? Maybe a dozen left."

Pointing to his own bag, Daniel reminded his friend. "We still have some of the plastique, Jack."

"Maybe enough to blow Ra's ship when he decides to show his head. I—"

Chevron one lit.

"Jack!" Daniel gestured towards the Stargate as others stepped back.

Carter popped her head up. "Sir!"

"I know!" Jack tapped his radio again. "Hansen, have you got the power up yet?" Maybe he could stop the first wave of incoming and get the gate open before the enemy could dial in. "We've got to dial now!"

No response.

Daniel gave Jack a worried look. He pulled out his globe, given by Hansen. "Commander Hansen?"

Still no answer.

"Jack, you don't think—"

"They could be below us with no signal getting through," Jack cut in. He stiffened as the third symbol lit, the Stargate's inner track rotating. "Crap, for once I would like to get things going my way!"

The room shuddered, throwing everyone to the floor.

"What the fuck was that?" Kawalsky yelped, rifle toward the cracked ceiling. "Everyone okay?" A few stray mumbles from other soldiers responded.

Daniel climbed to his feet, clawing the DHD. "The ship...Jack..."

The colonel nodded, looking at the Stargate, the sixth symbol locked now. "Ra." The room rumbled in agreement. Ra was beginning to land.

The seventh symbol locked, and the wormhole gushed out.

No iris to stop them.

No Stargate to leap through.

No back doors.

No cavalry.

No! Jack refused to think it could end like this. He'd told them it would be okay, told Hansen right to her face they could beat them. He was not going to be made a liar by the Goa'uld!

Jack grabbed the globe in Daniel's hands. "Jolinar! We have to abort! We need to beam back up now!"

Also no response.

"Jolinar! Ferretti! Anderson! Anyone out there?"

"Colonel!"

Jack looked up in time to see the first row of guards coming through. They were cut down immediately by the soldiers' gunfire. Daniel shouted, his hand yanking at Jack's vest this time, sending him ducking behind the DHD. Not much cover though as Jack felt the heat of a staff weapon blast scorch by him and land on the wall.

"Sam!"

Jack glanced up and saw no one returning fire from the observation booth. He growled, whipping around the column of the DHD, firing madly at the incoming Jaffa. He saw Kawalsky jerk back, smoke wafting from his upper left thigh as he fell. Teal'c dragged him behind a pile of rubble. But the protection was moot. It was too small, too close to the Stargate to provide any shelter.

Jack eyed the doorway as he fumbled for another clip, his weapon already empty. Slamming it in and already aiming for the next guard, Jack realized John and Ferretti had never emerged from the door. He didn't know if that was good or bad. He just hoped it meant the captains had hid, maybe their last chance at making this mission work.

The Stargate could stay open for thirty minutes, he recalled. Thirty minutes too long in his opinion as more and more hawk warriors came through like an endless wave of fire and brimstone. As one row fell, the other row was firing already, no regret for their comrades who fell covering them.

One by one, Jack heard soldiers screaming, some taking a hit square on, others the staff weapon fire skimmed past, painful enough to make them drop their weapons. Trapped, sealed in by their own hand, Jack kept at it, each clip now being passed by Daniel as the scientist had only one handgun left, the other hand alternating between supplying Jack and trying the communications globe again for anyone.

When another soldier cried out, dropping to the floor, Jack stopped firing. Teal'c and Kawalsky from their crumbling shelter glanced over to him and saw him shake his head. Kawalsky gritted his teeth, looking like he wanted to protest, but Jack angrily waved around at the bodies littering the ground, and he sat back, his face red. He had a second to throw down his rifle in disgust before the remaining Jaffa surrounded them, staff weapons inches from their faces.

"Shanta Tau'ri kree! Chu ka! Crem ma!"

"I think that means drop your guns, kids," Jack said quietly. He raised his head, gazing over his shoulder, blearily watching as Carter was yanked to her feet, guards having climbed into the observation booth from the exposed window and shoved her out without any remorse. "Let go!" The major grunted, landing hard on her feet, but saved for a few scrapes on her cheek, she looked okay. She gave the colonel a nod before she was pushed roughly down to kneel.

Jack winced as a staff weapon butted him in the shoulder. "Watch where you're poking that thing. I just got this uniform back from the cleaners. You know how expensive it is to wash staff wea—Oof!" The colonel slammed down to his knees, stunned.

"No!" Daniel lurched to his feet, only to be knocked down again.

"Hey! Knock it off!" Jack twisted around angrily. "Pick on someone your own IQ!"

Another slam.

"Sho tok!"

The guards froze, dropping on one knee. A regal figure, face concealed by a dark, emotionless mask with the long jutting chin stood in the center of the Stargate.

Ra.

Utterly still, his metal mask making him look like an ominous statue, his robes gilded with gold and armor plates that sculpted his lean muscular torso, the ruler waved his hand lazily at the others as he saw other Jaffa enter the room, dropping to their knees in reverent respect. Two young slaves, barely teenagers, who held his cape were naked except for a kilt wrapped high around their waists. The young men obediently stood behind the ruler, hands holding the semi-transparent cloak, heads bowed. They followed as the walking statue glided down with feline grace, stopping near the bottom of the ramp.

"Shen cho Jaffa."

Jack felt himself being hauled up, half dragged with the others until they were lined in a single row, kneeling in front of the ruler.

"Very interesting," Ra drawled, switching to English as he walked along the line, his large mask still an emotionless, cold expression. His hands, tipped with golden covers curled like talons, danced over some of the heads as he went, chuckling as some of the soldiers whipped their heads away, snarling.

"We were told they would be in our queen's vessel, awaiting my ceremony."

Jack said nothing, holding his breath as the Goa'uld god strolled to the center of the row, him, Daniel and Carter at the other end. He gritted his teeth as he saw Ra motion to the Jaffa to pry open the helmet of the only Jaffa kneeling, a firm grip bracing Kawalsky upright.

The helmet folded like a fan, disappearing into the collar, and showed Ra Teal'c's defiant face.

"Ah!" Ra sounded very amused. "A First Prime of my ally. Why are you here?"

Teal'c only stared back, eyes narrow, mouth a grim line.

"Interesting," Ra just said again and went on. His slaves followed like meek puppies, trailing behind their owner, making no comments as their lord abruptly stopped again, this time over Carter.

"The woman warrior who dared defy me." Ra's voice grew hard. "I shall enjoy making you a host to my newest queen. Then I shall parade you around and let your people see you bow to the very god you wished to destroy." He leaned forward, clawlike hands stroking her cheek. Carter looked squarely at him, silent. Ra withdrew, hissing.

"You were once a host. To whom?"

Carter didn't speak.

"Tru mel—" A Jaffa raised his staff weapon to strike her to get her to speak.

"Jaffa kree!"

The guard dropped his arm, apologetic to his lord.

"I wish her unmarred...for now." Ra moved down to Jack. The amusement was clear.

"The Shova." Golden talons brushed against Jack's throat. The colonel didn't flinch. "When I was told your identity by Hathor, I knew why some of my workers on Abydos were able to escape. It was you, wasn't it?"

Jack grinned, revealing teeth. But he kept his mouth shut.

Ra's grip curled, and Jack tensed as he felt the sharp tips poke at his Adam's apple. He fought the urge to cough.

"A thousand lashes for each slave you've freed before I kill you."

Jack gave a little snort, unimpressed. He kept his eyes forward, pretending indifference until he felt Ra move down, pausing in front of—

Daniel.

"My _re'klya_," Ra breathed. He laughed when he saw Jack stiffening. "Does my claim of ownership upset you, Shova?" He leaned closer to Daniel, gloved hands caressing the archeologist's cheek. "I see the scars from my _re'klya_." A pointy finger jabbed at a puncture mark where the devices had once been. "And yet you still live. Why? Who did this?"

Daniel didn't speak.

"I can rip your tongue out and let it speak for me, perhaps," Ra threatened.

The archeologist still said nothing.

Ra sighed. He backed away. "Shou crek Tau'ri." He gestured towards Teal'c, Carter, Jack and Daniel. "I wish to have these four for myself." He pointed to four Jaffa. "Take the others to the back and kill them." The pharaoh chuckled again when there was no reaction. "Quite impressive." He stood in the center of the Stargate, the slaves pressing something in the back of his mask. "You all would have been fine additions to my army."

The mask disappeared first from the sides, folding within itself. The jutting chin vanished, revealing a tanned chin, a young smile.

"But it is a pity you must be destroyed."

Eyes glowed as the upper part of the mask shrank back, revealing strong cheekbones, dark exotic eyes.

Daniel stiffened along with Jack as the mask slipped away, and they saw who was smiling arrogantly down at them.

"Yes," Ra intoned, eyes flashing. "A real pity."

"Skaara," Daniel whispered, his heart sinking as the young man smiled cruelly at him with glowing eyes.


	47. Chapter 46

**CHAPTER FORTY SIX**

Hansen, when she'd first received the frantic radio message from the colonel, surprised herself by offering to go back. A group of fourteen soldiers, clinging to three lines of cable in the dark, trying to hold their breaths as a foul smell of neglect surrounded them, and there she was offering to abort their mission and save people who'd never seen a hell like this in their lives.

Who would have thought?

Nevertheless, Hansen argued to herself that some of her men were up there too, damn it. But she couldn't do anything about it dangling on an elevator cable, shimmying down to the floor they needed. She would just have to move on.

She felt the cables twitch and tightened her grip before the vibration or even her backpack finally succeeded in sending her to the death the Goa'uld and Jaffa hadn't been able to accomplish yet. Everyone paused at the sound of muffled explosions coming from above their heads again. She braced her feet on the wall parallel to the cables, her hands gripping the metal cord tightly as sweat trickled from her face into the collar of her vest and jumpsuit. She eyed the tattered brackets where a service ladder had once stood, torn metal gleaming like stakes threatening to run them through at any given slip. "Siler," she hissed into the mike pinned on her collar, "tell me we're almost there."

A tinny voice whispered back into her earpiece. "Uh...I think so."

"You _think_ so?"

"The shaft's so damaged. There's hardly any light in here to see the numbers. Wait, I have my flashlight. I can see if I can—Whoops."

Hansen groaned as she saw a small circle of light, two floors below her feet, spinning, sailing as the flashlight slipped out of Siler's hands and tumbled away. Automatically, her eyes tracked its descent as it fell, shadows of her men flashing on the walls as it passed, the glow bouncing off the curved surfaces of their helmets. It spun away to the bottom. What she saw as it finally landed shook her arms so much she nearly let go.

"Oh shit," one of the soldiers whispered into his radio. Apparently, she wasn't the only one who'd tracked the flashlight.

Hansen swallowed, wiping the tip of her tongue around the inside of her mouth. "Siler," she croaked into her radio again. "Please tell me that wasn't what I just saw."

Even Siler sounded shaken. "Uh... I think it was, commander. I..." The sergeant gulped audibly over the radio. "Those must be the slaves they sent to uncover this base. Probably after they were done or too tired, the guards—" The engineer didn't finish.

"H-how many do you think are down there?" another soldier asked into the radio, his young voice a high pitch of fright, betraying his age. In the back of Sammy's mind, she recalled this boy stubbornly insisting he was twenty when she first found him rummaging through garbage in between hiding from the Jaffa herding for more slaves. _Twenty, my ass. _She gritted her teeth.

"Never mind that, Dunne," she said gruffly. _Note to self. If we ever get out of this, check everyone's date of birth again._ "Keep going. There's nothing more we can do for them." Hansen blinked away the image of dozens of permanently horrified faces from her mind, replacing it with the vision of the power room they were trying to find, making a mental red circle around it.

"I think I see a ladder a few feet from me." Siler was quick to change the topic before the younger soldiers got too squeamish. The older, more experienced engineer heard their first edge of fear as the adrenaline of the mission wore off and reality began to kick in in the form of a mass grave below. Siler always knew when to keep them too busy to think. "Probably another three stories down for you, Commander."

"Great," Sammy muttered, frowning as she felt the building shake. "Uh...Sergeant?"

Siler sounded frantic. "I don't know. But we—"

The sergeant never finished. With a loud boom, the building felt like it leapt a foot and crashed back down again. Jolted, Hansen's grip loosened, her boots slid off from bracing against the wall, and she went sliding down the cable uncontrollably. She hollered a warning, but she also heard a hoarse yell fading below her. She clenched the cable tighter, gritting her teeth as the fibers ripped through her gloves, slicing into her hands.

"Damn it!" She shouted, her legs bumping into something. Another scream.

"Commander!"

She tried to lock her grip, but her blood had made the cable slick, her ears ringing with another young scream. She slammed her right arm against the wall, trying to grab onto something to brake her descent, skidding as she kicked out as well, halting her fall. Heaving, she ignored the burning sensation in her hands and the electrifying jolt running up and down her legs and looked down.

"Siler?" she called out in a shaky voice. Was that her? "Wells? Sterns?"

Siler's face suddenly appeared in front of her, and she jerked. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the collar. She steadied, nodding curtly she was okay before he finally let go. The engineer must have found another flashlight because he shone it down to his feet and the ladder rung under his boots. He swung the beam lower, illuminating a little under a dozen terrified white faces gawking back at her, some clutching the rungs as if they would never let go.

"Everyone okay?" she asked gruffly, still trying to draw air back into her lungs.

A few nodded. Others were still giving her that damn scared deer in the headlights look.

"H-how many did we lose?" Hansen asked, fearing the answer.

Siler seemed to age, eyes anguished as he croaked, "Wells fell at that tremor. I tried to catch him, Commander. I'd—"

Hansen shook her head. "Siler, I know you did. Who...who else?"

"I think Jefferies and Simpson dropped as well. They...they must have lost their grip."

Sammy darkened, remembering the bump she'd felt as she slid down uncontrollably and the scream after that.

"Should we…"

"No," she said, swallowing the regret, the uncomfortable feeling of being pinned by all the soldiers' stares. "We can't stop. If...if they made it, they'll climb back up. We have to keep going. It should only be one more floor. We've got to get that Stargate working." Judging by the way the colonel had sounded, the Asgards were their only hope left. Otherwise, Sammy suspected she'd be joining her men at the bottom of the shaft.

SG1SG1SG1

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John resisted the urge to grab his staff weapon and start firing. As he watched the teleport rings take SG-1, Ra and some of his guards away with a quick press of the gem on one of the Jaffa's gloves, it struck John the Goa'uld had assumed he was one of their guards too. That meant leaving him, Ferretti and two of his personal guards behind.

Underneath the hawk helmet, John smiled tightly.

"Jaffa kree nok tel!" Ra's personal guard waved towards the rest of the prisoners. The other motioned everyone to rise to their feet, shoving them into a double line. A few of the soldiers struggled, glaring, earning a solid punch to their backs. John had to clutch his staff weapon tighter to resist helping them.

He rose to his feet, discreetly tapping Ferretti on the wrist, right over the spot he knew Louis had worn the wire bracelet given to him, hidden under the gloves of the armor. The hawk armor bobbed once in shock, then he realized it was John when the captain discreetly pulled his glove back to show his bracelet. Ferretti nodded once, showing he understood. The two soldiers each carefully maneuvered behind a guard, marching in place. When Ferretti was in position, John called out in a deep commanding voice, the tone a chilling reminder of his Overseer days.

"Jaffa!"

The two guards simultaneously turned at John's call.

John and Louis opened fire, their staff weapons bursting out twin bolts that landed squarely on their chests. The two guards didn't even have a chance to garble out a scream when John viciously fired again, spinning his target around like a rag doll until he fell on his stomach.

The helmets retracted with twin hisses, Ferretti's shocked face gawking at John's profile as O'Neill stood over the dead Jaffa, watching the red eyes of the hawk fade without remorse.

"Kree," John finished. He immediately turned to the others. Kawalsky was limping, standing there staring at the dead guards.

"Nice," Kawalsky said, glancing around at his men. "Cap, they got the colonel and—"

"I know. But we have their key to get up there." John pulled out the pendant Dan had draped over his neck from inside his armor. At the thought of his brother, a cold jolt raced up his spine. "Kawalsky, why didn't you guys contact Jolinar and go back up to the ship?"

Wincing as one of the soldiers bound his burns, Kawalsky hesitated. "We...we couldn't reach them."

"What?" John urgently patted around for his communication globe, activating it as soon as he felt the round, smooth surface in his palm. "Jolinar. This is O'Neill in Alpha base. Can you read me?"

The marble was silent.

"Could be anything, John," Kawalsky said. "We couldn't reach the commander either."

"I have to go to them." Shoving the communications globe into Kawalsky's palm, John stormed towards the DHD, cutting through the rubble which dared stand in his way. The other soldiers stepped away at his expression, none daring to protest the foolhardy decision.

"Now, hold on!" Kawalsky staggered over to John, hopping on his good leg and grabbed his arm. "You can't just leave us here! We've got a mission to finish!" He gave John's unyielding arm another yank. "And how do you think you're going to get up there? You try transporting to Jermak's ship, and you're toast before the rings are even completed!"

"The nuke is up there on our ship!" John hissed. "And Ra is already here. We need that nuke to blow up him and his ship!"

"We have to get the Stargate working to reach the Asgards. Then some of us will have to go through," insisted Kawalsky with another tug at his arm. He didn't flinch at the burning glare John gave him, not backing off. "Cap...don't do this." Kawalsky lowered his voice. "Dan wouldn't want you to. Focus. Don't disappoint the kid, man."

John stilled, his gaze flaring at his friend.

Kawalsky jerked back his hand. "John, hey, I'm—"

"Right. You're right." John bunched his fist, closing his eyes tightly, breathing in and out for a second before he opened them again. He'd made a promise to see this through for Dan. He ground his teeth together. "Try the commander again."

Giving Ferretti a nervous look, Kawalsky eased himself back down to the ground, hissing. He clutched his radio mike with bloody hands, barking into it. "Commander! Red team, this is Blue team! Do you read me?"

"Try another signal," suggested one of the soldiers as he nervously kept glancing back to the entrance.

Kawalsky shook his head, two fingers staying on the knob, twisting it left and right as he tried to find a signal, a voice.

John eyed the embarkation room thoughtfully. "We'd better set some charges here. If they get past the stuff we piled high, we'll have to bury this gate so they can't ever use it again."

Nodding, Kawalsky didn't bother looking up as he stared intently at the quiet radio, "Commander Hanso—"

"Blue leader here." Hansen's brisk voice came in, crackling but there.

Kawalsky sagged out of relief, nearly dropping the radio. "Commander!"

"Kawalsky? Where's Colonel O'Neill? What's your status?"

John spoke into Ferretti's radio as his friend directed the other soldiers to search the area, some climbing to the observation room. "The colonel and his team got caught by Ra. They got taken to his ship."

The radio fell silent. "How many of you are left?"

Kawalsky did a quick count and made a face. "I've got a total of nine."

"Damn," Hansen muttered. "Look, we're right outside the elevator doors for our level. Siler is about to go in. Give us five minutes to get the power going. If you don't hear from us after that, use the gate, get to Colburn, and abort the mission."

A few soldiers, having overheard, turned their heads sharply. John clutched the radio tighter. "If you think I'm going to leave my—"

Hansen interrupted him, her voice somber even through the weak signal. "No...I don't. Just don't drag the rest of my men with you, Captain. You go, and you're on your own."

Kawalsky gave John a look that suggested otherwise.

As if reading their minds, Hansen hissed sharply. It might as well have been a shout. "I'm making that an order, Kawalsky!"

The man started, catching the radio before it fell out of his hands. Kawalsky muttered, "Yes, ma'am" into the radio reluctantly.

"Five minutes."

With a click, Hansen was gone. John looked around the room, his throat tightening. Everyone was checking the place out, searching for anything they could use. Blurs of blue uniforms, black Kevlar went by him, and John never felt more out of place wearing the armor of the enemy.

"We'll get up there somehow," Kawalsky murmured, wincing as his leg bothered him. He tugged at his own armor, his discomfort palpable.

John mutely nodded. "We'd better...we'd better get ready for the commander, then." He turned away from his comrade and went for the observation booth, climbing with barely a grimace. If he couldn't get to the ship, he was going to have to keep busy. He didn't care if it was just moving all the boulders and rubble away from the area so long as it made time go fast enough until he could finally go up there. Climbing over the consoles, dropping to the little space remaining in the booth, John called back down to Kawalsky.

"Keep trying for Jolinar and Dan!" he shouted.

Kawalsky nodded, already speaking into the palm sized globe.

"Jolinar, this is Blue team, can you hear me? Blue team to Jolinar...Is anyone listening?"

SG1SG1SG1

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"Hey!" Jack complained as another shove sent him crashing into Carter and Daniel. The four Jaffa guards chuckled deeply as they watched the three humans fall into a clumsy heap on the ground. Teal'c stepped forward to assist them, but a poke from one of the guard's staff weapons to his belly and a shake of O'Neill's head forced him back.

Jack grimaced, feeling a cut on his left palm from where he'd fallen roughly before. The teleport rings had deposited them into a huge black marble room. Statues of hawks were everywhere, guarding over large blocklike tables Jack assumed were controls for something important. Daniel had paused for one lousy second, probably drawing some similarities or his usual academic ill-timed fascination returning, and the guards had wrenched his arms back. When Carter got a meaty smack on the face for protesting, Jack stepped in, only to get his very own backhand across his jaw before crashing into the floor, slicing his hand open from one of those stupid golden statues of half man, half bird things lining the chamber. After that, Ra hissed to his guards- probably not liking the mess ole Jacky boy was making of his place—and the team got hustled into one of the dozen entrances hiding behind red velvet curtains. The winding corridors formed a maze of walls filled with hieroglyphs and statues standing like guards on duty.

The blood was still dripping from his hand and stung like the devil. But Jack took advantage of it, letting the gore drip to the floor in even spots, making a morbid trail they could use later to follow out of this damn maze or maybe for a friendly rescuer to use to track them down. He bunched his fist, letting nails dig into the cut to keep it bleeding. He shot the Jaffa a glare as they watched, amused, when they got back on their feet again.

"Sha je shi." Up ahead, Ra didn't sound pleased with the constant delay.

Bowing, the guards backed off, only poking their weapons in either Teal'c's or Daniel's back occasionally to keep them moving. Jack could hear them whispering in their language, apparently making crude remarks because Daniel stiffened and Teal'c actually growled back. Jack bared his teeth in return, walking a little faster so he was side by side with the archeologist, blocking the guards' leering. He kept his gaze casual though, not wanting his concern for his teammates to paint a bullseye on them, marking them as a way to attack him by hurting the rest of his team. But Jack couldn't help giving a sideways glance over to Daniel though, the concern barely squelched in his gaze. Daniel didn't meet Jack's gaze. The intense look on his face, as if he was concentrating really hard, made Jack grin to himself.

The archeologist was memorizing the path of the maze, too.

_Way to go_, Jack thought, approvingly. He pretended to cough harshly, trying to get the archeologist's attention, fist covering his mouth, hunching a little for effect. Daniel immediately skidded to a halt with a hand on Jack's shoulder, pulling it back when he felt dampness from a cut Jack got down in the embarkation room.

"You okay?" Daniel murmured, worried, forgetting for a moment there were four nasty guards who'd rather the prisoners kept their mouths shut.

"Shu cre _re'klya_!"

A lash of the staff weapon under his knees, and Daniel stiffened, staggering a step, trying not to fall again in front of the amused guards. Carter spun around, protesting, earning a slam against the wall. The guard rammed the staff down on Daniel's shoulder, sending him to the floor right on top of Jack's feet.

"Hey!" Jack protested hotly. "Knock it off!"

Spots dancing, Daniel blearily saw Jack waving his hands, telling him to get up. He shook his head, refusing to let himself pass out here, not in front of Ra, not in front of the leering guards who wanted to… He was about to reach for Jack's hand when he started at the red trickle seeping out of Jack's fingers.

Drip. Drip.

The colonel looked down at him, asking loudly, too loudly in fact, if he was okay. Daniel stared at Jack, comprehension dawning as he read the silent message. Daniel winced, dropping his head to his hands, pretending to be dizzy. Sure enough, peeking between his fingers, Daniel could see the small trail of blood behind Jack, leading all the way out from where they'd started.

"I'm okay," Daniel said cautiously, nodding at Jack. The colonel relaxed, reading the message in the gesture and helped Daniel up. Carter glared at the guards, her eyes drifting to Jack's hands as well before her eyes whipped away again. She deliberately turned around, complaining loudly so the Jaffa wouldn't take notice of where her gaze had been.

Jack bit back a grin as the guards were getting frustrated, their prisoners not wailing and wringing their hands like they should be, but rather, being the biggest group of pains in the ass they had ever encountered. Even Teal'c was getting into the act, growling under his breath, pushing back at the guards a little when they nudged him with their weapons.

"Chu shun tak!"

Ra was suddenly there. His hand gloved with a ribbon device, shot out and grabbed Daniel by the throat. The archeologist gagged, hands up to the iron-strong fist, but he couldn't break free.

"Son of a—" Jack stepped forward, only to be pulled back by the guards, their hands clawing at his shoulders.

"Persist in your petty disturbances, and my _re'klya_ will die now instead." Angry eyes flashed white as Ra tightened his grip. The gem in his device, snug against the curve of Daniel's throat began to glow. The Goa'uld god looked at Jack, silently daring him to continue.

Jack glowered, took in Daniel's closed eyes as the archeologist waited, and finally lowered his hands.

Ra smirked. Abruptly, he shoved Daniel back, smashing him against Teal'c. The Jaffa caught Daniel easily, steadying him back on his feet. Daniel nodded at the question he read in Teal'c's face and straightened.

"A Jaffa who worries over my _re'klya_. Interesting." Amused, Ra's eyes raked up and down Daniel's length, but he said nothing more. He waved at his accompanying slaves to gather his cloak again and strolled down the corridor with the casual grace of a man with plenty of time on his hands.

Jack stared at the back, surprised at the surge of anger he could feel for a man who bore the face of a kid he'd met years ago, a kid of spunk who always looked at them with such enthusiasm and trust.

_Skaara_, he thought with sad twitch of the corner of his mouth. He'd hoped the young man was spared all of this but heard what John had to do on Abydos. He remembered Jolinar's sad tone, the voice and grief of Sha're perhaps seeping through her own words as she spoke of Sha're's family. So Jack thought, assumed, it meant Skaara had perished as well. He consoled himself by reasoning at least this war was over for the young man.

He was wrong.

Glaring at the back, Jack realized Ra had still kept the appearance somewhat of the ruler he'd met while down on his knees with Daniel when they were caught so long ago. Ra's long hair straightened into a slick plate of gleaming black mane, swept up into a bun, fastened with twin sharp golden sticks. The usual thick braids or dreadlocks Skaara sported were gone. Underneath the finely woven robes though, Jack could see the outline of body armor, tight around the lean torso, dark plates of metal bracing the plane of his back, almost similar to a Jaffa's armor. The usual exposure of the midriff he'd seen other Goa'ulds flash and the one key vulnerable spot Jack knew he could use against the aliens wasn't there either. Ra carried the appearance of a warrior more than the pampered, indulgent ruler he'd first met on Abydos. And despite the face he wore now, Ra felt more dangerous to Jack than his dead twin, especially when he realized this ruler preferred to dispense his own punishment with sadistic pleasure.

Jack absently picked at his cut, feeling the warm blood trickle more as he studied the enemy they'd come to eliminate. His initial misgiving when he saw it was Skaara's body held captive under Ra was gone the moment Ra looked at Daniel with depraved anticipation of what he'd do to him.

Jack grimaced, still keeping an ear out for his teammates as they turned yet another corner, losing track if they were going south from the chamber they'd arrived in or east. The hallways were beginning to look repetitious, the turns and twists, sometimes even feeling like they were doubling back. All he saw were the damn Jaffa statues, too lifelike for his own taste with the brass colored hawk helmets, the erect stance, the staff weapons held high. Their shadows swayed back and forth as they passed many of the corridors with round fist shaped crystals, green fire glowing within them to provide scant lighting.

After what felt like hours, Jack noticed Ra was finally slowing down near what looked like a dead end. A round carving on a wall, a tablet with symbols drawn all around it, met the group. Ra said something to his slaves and sent them scurrying back with a bow. When they stepped away, heads down, the guards began pushing Jack and his friends to fall on their knees, alien words grunting at them as they shoved their heads down with a bark.

Lowering his head only a little, Jack raised his eyes to look over Daniel's hunched form and watched as Ra slipped something off his neck, a small object shining off the stones' lights.

The pendant.

For a moment, Jack almost forgot his counterpart had it with him, the pendant an exact duplicate of Catherine's charm, down to the heavy gold segments posing as a chain for it. Even from where he was, he could see the gleam of highly polished metal. Catherine's charm was burnished with age and damage. Ra pressed the carved object into a tiny hole in the center of the wall tablet before giving it a slight twist to the right.

A quiet rumble from behind the wall started, and the slaves in front trembled with fright, watching as the wall grew a seam down in between, parting with reluctance as Ra retrieved his pendant and hung it back over his neck. The guards poked their staff weapons at them again, telling them to rise as the slit spread apart further into a doorway.

Jack turned his head away since the sudden burst of bright light from the newly open chamber was painful. Blinking away the spots in his vision, the colonel realized the room was like the one he'd seen on Ra's ship on his first mission to Abydos. Ra's throne was again on top of a set of steps at one end of the room, a pair of hawk-headed male statues with their staff weapons crossed at the other end, a circle drawn on the floor under their shadow for teleport rings. He was able to make out more black marble and another larger circle in the center of the room in front of the lavish throne as they were herded through the chamber. Columns showed the team's progress with their reflections warped and twisting. Statues were set in the four corners of a chamber generously decorated by curtains.

He scowled.

This wasn't exactly a place he wanted to go visiting again. Unbidden, the echoes of aliens shouting, a bold voice telling the Jaffa to stop, the clogging reek of smoke, and the stench of charred flesh followed by a human cry came to mind. He gnashed his teeth, willing the memory away, ignoring the little voice telling him history had a tendency to repeat itself.

_Like hell_, he thought, throwing his gaze to the walls where he saw chains dangling empty, waiting for new prisoners.

The room's walls peaked to a point above. Ra faced his open palm with the gem into another precious stone embedded into the left armrest of his throne. Everyone could feel the rumble after the gem was swept over the armrest, and soon, the walls opened like petals.

Head up, Jack saw the ceiling open, pointed corners of its peak sliding away to reveal the sun shining down on them as they stood there under its natural spotlight.

They were at the apex of the pyramid.

"Shu chak!"

The Jaffa shoved them to a wall, left of the throne, clamping chains down on their wrists. Their confiscated packs were tossed to the other side of the room, a glance barely given to the items. Jack struggled, kicking, wrestling with the arms bracing him, but he was placed into position anyway. He turned his head, making note of exits and the glimpse of a familiar blue sky through the newly made windows when the outer walls glided down. He saw in the distance flat land stretching into the horizon. Small peaks dotted the skyline that Jack knew couldn't be mountains. He knew Cheyenne was high enough to see from, and he knew there should not be anything more across their view except for the canyons behind them.

Pyramids. A land of pyramids.

"You should be grateful," Ra's smooth voice intoned. "A chance to see your world once more."

Glaring at him, keeping an eye out as the guards tried to get Teal'c in the chains, the Jaffa giving them every bit of trouble, Jack didn't speak.

The Goa'uld god raised his chin with an air of confidence. His eyes shone with anticipation.

"Here," Ra breathed, "is where you'll die."

Jack looked at Ra, so many things he wanted to spit in that face, but all he could think of was one thing.

_This really, really sucks._

SG1SG1SG1

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The soldiers of what remained of Blue team had made a decent barrier of concrete boulders lining up in front of the only entrance left to the embarkation room. Piled high to the chin, the boulders resembled a makeshift stucco wall, but it was hardly the shelter they could hope to hide behind. It was only a matter of time before the Jaffa around the base chipped away the debris to get through. And while everyone didn't relish the idea of having a fire fight in an enclosed place like this, they also knew if the guards were focusing on coming in here, it meant fewer people were looking for the commander and her team down below.

Kawalsky had given up trying to reach Jolinar, sick and tired of only hearing his own voice calling out. He'd noticed the younger members of their rag tag bunch looking nervous with each failed attempt so he ended up sitting there massaging the area around his wound, looking at the globe like he was tempted to kick it across the room like a soccer ball. He glanced at John where Captain Ferretti and another soldier named Sands were trying to finish what Carter had started, attaching the hard drive to the only remaining CPU probably left in this base.

"Anything, Lou?" Kawalsky asked, glowering when Ferretti shook his head. The captain hobbled to his feet, the bandages around his thigh standing out on the dirty uniform. He busied himself checking their weapons, reloading some, counting the grenades they had left, pointing to some weak spots the soldiers should watch.

John grew tired of observing Louis and Sands work on the machine with wires strewn about their feet, their helmets laid out open beside the mess, as they muttered to themselves. He sat down on the floor, rifle balanced against his left shoulder, staring at the ceiling, imagining what must be happening up there. Despite the fact that he knew he could never leave this group behind to fend for themselves, there was a part of him screaming, wondering why he was just sitting here. Dan was up there, his brother on a ship he'd thought was safer than running around with them down here, now lost to him because some damn alien globe refused to connect.

Staring at the ceiling was making John's heart hammer too fast with anxiety. His palms itched from inactivity so he forced himself to search the room instead. He found himself staring at the black woolen cap crumpled on the floor of the observation room, wondering why it looked familiar. The woven fabric sat under a pile of rubble, rocks that formed too neat a line to be an accident. John went over to it, brushing some of the debris aside, recollection making the connection that this was Carter's cap. Looking at the label sown inside the brim he found sure enough that her initials SC and her team designation were scrawled inside. Picking it up, he squeezed it within his hand, surprised to hear something crinkle. He parted the headgear, peering inside, startled to find a folded piece of paper.

"What you got there, Cap?" Ferretti asked absently from under the console, swearing softly as sparks rained on him. His legs sticking from under the console kicked out as he sought to avoid the embers. "God damn it! Some of these power lines are too damaged!"

"Found Major Carter's hat over there. There's a note inside," John exclaimed, unfolding the hastily scrawled message. "The timer's under the first console," he read out loud.

Ferretti poked his head out from under the station. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

Waving the missive in the air, John crouched near the first station, the table smashed by debris. Groping around under the rubble beneath, John gave a grunt when he felt something rectangular in shape with small knobs. He pulled it out, his eyebrow arched.

"The controls for the plastique we set." John stared at the device. "It's not on."

"You think the explosives survived those grenades we tossed?"

"I don't know," murmured John as he examined the device. It still looked okay.

"The major must have snuck it in there when the Goa'ulds first arrived."

John nodded. "Could be."

Ferretti scratched his chin. "Don't know what good that'll do for us. Can't blow them if the commander is down there. They'll get—"

_"Blue team, this is Red leader."_

The soldiers started, looking at each other as Hansen's garbled voice came through their earpiece. John could see Kawalsky waving below frantically, wondering if they heard it too. John gave a nod before responding.

"Blue team. O'Neill here. Commander, what's your status?"

Hansen sounded audibly annoyed. _"We've reached the power room. It's been cleaned up a bit, but the Goa'ulds know nothing about power or electricity. I'm surprised anything works."_

Automatically, the soldiers glanced at the ceiling again.

Siler could be heard complaining in the background about the condition of the fuse boxes in very colorful terms. Hansen, sighing, spoke again in a hushed voice. _"Any word from the other teams?"_

"We can't reach them. We're trying to patch the computer ourselves." John paused when another spark of electricity sent Ferretti cursing.

_"Can the computer be running soon?"_

"Hope so." Another swear from Louis made him close his eyes. "We should be done in a little while. We found a monitor, but I don't know if it works. We'll know in a minute."

Hansen sounded impatient as noises from a frustrated Siler who'd obviously pulled something he shouldn't have mixed with her voice. All the lights flickered in the embarkation room. _"Before we left that other base, Major Carter wrote out the symbols and had you guys memorize it. Try the Giza as well with those eight symbols."_

"Commander." Ferretti grabbed his radio. "We don't know if the Giza can take eight symbols. The reason why we needed the computer was to tell the Stargate to keep rotating and draw power for the eighth symbol."

_"Try it anyway."_

"But—"

John cut in before Ferretti could keep arguing. "This may all be moot. The guards out there are bound to break through soon and try to get in here."

Hansen sighed audibly over the radio. _"Try both at once. See what it will take. Keep trying the computers."_

He heard a muffled explosion. "Commander?"

_"Shit..."_ Hansen quieted for a moment, then in a lower tone, said, _"O'Neill, looks like we have company. Start trying for the eight symbols now. Keep going until our time is up. Give us...three minutes from now. You remember what I told you before?"_

John darkened. "I remember."

**"Good, then give us three minutes. You don't get the symbols, you get your men out of there."**

Ferretti let out a small whoop just as the computer blinked and hummed, the CPU's cooling fan whirring a little too loudly in John's opinion, the monitor sluggishly turning on with a few twitches and flickers. "I think we got it, Commander!"

The radio was silent.

Alarmed, John brought the radio closer to him. "Commander? What's happening?"

A cackle of static responded.

"Cap!"

John peered over the broken window at Kawalsky's worried face. John looked at his radio again.

And came to a decision.

"You heard her!" John shouted down. "Start dialing!"

"What about the commander? Siler? The others?" Kawalsky gestured towards the doorway. "We can clear the rubble and get out there—"

"And have our asses in the frying pan with no one left watching the fire!" John argued back. "Start dialing!" He looked back over his shoulder to Ferretti. The other captain looked a bit pale, but he nodded and began tapping away at the computers. John returned to Kawalsky, face full of regret.

"Best thing we can do is stay here and try for the symbols. They'll get the power up."

"You sure?"

_No._ John gave a thumbs up. "Yeah!"

Kawalsky stared at him for a long moment. Then he abruptly spun around on his good leg, barking orders to the soldiers, sending them scurrying to the homemade barriers with their rifles aimed at the door. Kawalsky hobbled over to the DHD. "Okay! Louis, you start first! Then I'll try!"

The lanky captain nodded, eyes glued to the flickering screen. He began shouting out the chevrons as the Stargate slowly responded to old machinery, rotating once more.

"Chevron one...engaged!"

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Hansen swore strongly as she was forced to duck back into the cluttered room again. A burst of energy landed centimeters off her left shoulder. Her frantic lunge for the floor, followed by a warning from her men seconds too late had her ribs aching with protest as she was pinned down in what was left of a former lab. The guards swarmed out of the stairwells, blowing apart debris and rubble that had fallen over the hallways and doors. They were firing their staff weapons before they were even completely in the hallways.

Blasts scored the walls, punching holes in the dividing barriers of concrete. The ceiling creaked and groaned under the onslaught around her. She kicked aside a crumpled lab cart, pushed one in front of her as another shield and swung back into the hallway again, crouched down, firing madly at anything that had a metal head for its body. She could see Siler ducking back into the power room, grabbing one soldier by the collar and hauling him inside before a blast took out a chunk of the wall the soldier had been standing in front of.

Sammy stayed where she was, two doors down from the end of the passage where Siler was, firing wildly at the incoming Jaffa as they emerged from three other directions the hall opened to. Her men, parked in various spots up and down the corridor, valiantly kept the Jaffa at bay, but she knew there was only so much ammo one could carry, only so much luck one could have before they both ran dry.

"I'm out!" someone hollered, the sound of a magazine clip skidding across the hall to the speaker the only response.

One blast got too close, and Sammy had to throw herself back into the room she was peeking from. Just in time since the blast landed right where her head had been, a gaping smoking hole on the doorframe the only thing left to show how precarious the situation was.

"Siler!" she barked into the radio. "Tell me you have it working!"

"Trying...wires too...going to combine..." Siler's voice was breaking up, the battle outside his location shaking the walls and ceiling around him. The sergeant kept pausing. "The job...done by...someone with all...thumbs...damn..."

Hansen dropped to her stomach, whipping from behind the doorframe and firing her rifle into the hallway again before jerking her head back in. She glared at the radio, hissing into her mike.

"Look, I don't care if it was done by two headed monkeys! Get that power going now!"

Siler didn't respond, already back at work.

She checked her watch. Three minutes. She'd only allowed herself three minutes. It was chancy, she knew. But she also knew she couldn't let every single man get slaughtered by the Goa'uld. So three minutes she'd given Captain O'Neill, and three minutes was all she had. She checked her watch and knew the time was almost up.

Taking a deep breath, she joined the battle again, rifle towards the hallway, firing, firing until one fell but then two more arrived. Like bees out of a hive, grew the numbers of gleaming hawk heads bobbing up and down, plasma blasts sailing past their heads, their pitiful guns taking too many bullets to strike one Jaffa.

Too many.

It was always too many.

Sammy knew she shouldn't, but she ripped the grenade she'd attached to her belt, teeth yanking out the pin. She gave one more short burst of fire before she tossed the orb. It rolled past her men, who ducked into their rooms, past the grid where the hallways intersected, serenely spinning towards the guards.

_Boom._

The explosion didn't even bring down the ceiling. A half dozen Jaffa lay on the ground, but a new row of guards coldly stepped over their comrades and marched towards them, staff weapons primed.

Hansen heard someone cry out as a staff weapon met its mark, but she didn't check to see who it was, her rifle jerking in her hands as she fired endlessly until—

Click.

"Damn it!" The rifle jammed.

Hansen yanked at the firing pin, but nothing resulted; by the time she pulled her sidearm out instead, a boot came crashing down on her wrist. She gritted her teeth, her hand sprawled into twisted talons, her pistol dropped. She raised her head and stared defiantly at the guard as she heard her men being yanked to their feet. The sounds of the staff weapons opening were loud and unanimous.

In moments when Sammy thought she was going to die, she never had any regrets for her choice to remain on this world and fight. And even now, as the staff head sizzled with energy above her body, there was still none.

Even prone on the floor, Sammy Hansen stared right at the guard, chin out, eyes steady and waited as the guard barked the order to fire.

She heard the growing whine of the weapon, and she kept her eyes on the guard. A sudden burst of light and heat engulfed her, sent her surroundings into a bright haze of smoke, shouting ringing in her ears. Then, she felt nothing.

SG1SG1SG1

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Jack gritted his teeth, testing his bonds; the chains gave him only enough room to move his wrist around. He debated whether he should try to break or dislocate his thumb to slip his hand out, a prospect he didn't like because he had done it before in his black ops years but whatever would get him free had to be considered no matter how painful. Turning to his left, he saw Carter staring at the slotted windows as well, her hands clenching open then closed, testing the chains. She glanced over to him and nodded. She could forcefully slip her hands out too if given the chance.

Jack shook his braces, feeling the bracelet inside his sleeve rubbing against the fabric, reminding him about the others underground at the base. He gritted his teeth, feeling the sting of his cut palm. To his right were Teal'c and Daniel. He stiffened when he saw the guards hadn't chained Daniel to the wall along with them. Whipping his eyes forward, he saw them dragging Daniel, the archeologist refusing to walk or cooperate, over to Ra, slamming him down on his knees in respect to their god, chains clamped around his limbs then hooked to the rings to keep him kneeling on the ground.

"_Re'klya_." Speaking the word in a softly accented English with his hand to Daniel's chin, Ra smiled, perfect white teeth gleaming. "You will be honored to know I will allow you all in my royal courts for the execution. You should perish in the bowels of Netu, but I will permit you the chance to see your world one last time before your demise."

Daniel said nothing, not even looking at him. He watched the windows, jaw clenched as he saw the pyramids in the far distance, the landscape no longer a familiar one to him.

A slap spun his head back to the front. Daniel's chains rattled as he twitched.

"Do not ignore me again," Ra hissed, circling around him. He waved his slaves off, the young attendants fleeing at his call, ducking behind curtains covering his personal chambers where Daniel saw other frightened servants hiding before the curtain dropped back over their faces.

Ra grabbed him by the chin, the glove's talons digging into his jaw. "Tell me who healed you of my_ re'klya_ sentence, and I will let you die without watching your brother and friends tortured in front of you."

Blue eyes stared back unflinching. Daniel held his tongue. He winced though when Ra moved his hand over his throat again.

"Have you seen a Tau'ri with its throat ripped out?" Ra purred, his hand stroking the throat up and down. Daniel suppressed the shudder his body made as cold metal scraped along his skin, each pause of the fingers and the added pressure tricking him into thinking they would dig into his flesh. He stared at Skaara's face and found no remorse, no sadness for what the host body was forced to do. It was like watching Skaara back on Apophis' ship again, locked under the ribbon device, nothing but pure sadistic pleasure on the Abydonian youth's features as the device slowly boiled Daniel's insides.

"It is quite pathetic," the god went on, releasing him finally and circled around him as he spoke. He poked at the chains stretching from Daniel's arm to the floor with a smile. "To see it flounder like a fish, wishing to beg for forgiveness, only to die without saying a word." Ra abruptly stood behind Daniel. "A fate you more than deserve for daring to go against me."

"You don't belong here." Daniel said the words quietly but with conviction. "Chet tom neteru—"

Ra slammed a fist into the back of Daniel's shoulders. The archeologist fell forward on his stomach, the chains stretching his limbs back. He started to rise, but then Ra dropped down on his back, knees pressing down on his spine. Daniel gritted his teeth.

"Son of a bitch!" Jack was shouting from afar. "Let him go!" Daniel blearily heard others calling out, but he was only acutely aware of the round hard pressure bending his back, threatening to break it in half, Ra's fist now on top of his skull, the gem of the ribbon device rubbing his hair.

"Jaffa!"

Daniel heard several staff weapons open, and his friends fell silent. Daniel turned his head towards them, eyes blurring, but he could see Jack, could see the others staring back at him.

_It's okay_, Daniel wanted to say, to calm them and himself. He wasn't scared. Wasn't scared of Ra. He wasn't. No. They beat him before and even if he died now, someone would be there to beat him again.

Jack stared back, the fury burning behind his eyes as he could only watch Ra press down harder on Daniel, the archeologist biting back a cry. He couldn't move, couldn't struggle as the open blossom of the staff weapon was jammed right at his throat, forcing his head back, like the rest of his team. Arms trembling from the strain, stretched as he was forced to lie down, Daniel kept his gaze on his comrades, silent, determined, unafraid.

The sound of a blade hissed loudly as it left its sheath. Ra pulled out the large hooked knife from its resting place on his right thigh. With one hand on Daniel's head, keeping it down, Ra placed the knife between Daniel's shoulders. He chuckled when he felt the scholar stiffen at the sharp contact.

"Such brave words from my _re'klya_," chuckled Ra.

Daniel bristled, struggling to throw him off without success. He shouted out as loud as he could, "I'm not your _re'klya_!"

A hand tightened around the short strands of his hair, smashing Daniel's face down on the marble floor so close he could see his own eyes blinking back on the polished surface.

"You were mine the moment I broke you!"

"You never broke me!" Daniel kept his gaze on Jack. The colonel, grim, tight lipped, nodded at him. It was going to be okay. Daniel closed his eyes for a second. "You never broke me!"

"I broke you the moment you began to scream," Ra seethed. The blade stroked up and down Daniel's back, the obscene point felt even through his vest, his jacket. "Or do you not remember, my _re'klya_? How you screamed for me to stop, begged me to kill you?"

Daniel bit his lower lip, keeping still. The knife dug deep, and he flinched, but instead of the stab he'd expected, he heard a rip as the knife cut, the sharp blade slicing through layers of clothing, exposing his back to the chilled air.

"Yes," Ra breathed. "I remember you even called your brother's name, did you not? Right before I..." He ran the tip of the knife down Daniel's back, tracing the curve of his spine. "No scars...where are your scars?"

Daniel's eyes flew open with a shot of panic. He could hear Ra's puzzlement, the blade stopping its descent, the knees still pressing into his back but the pressure lessening.

"Who healed you?" the Goa'uld hissed with such intensity Daniel heard the guards in the background shifting nervously at his tone rather than the unfamiliar words. "Who dared to interfere with my punishments?"

The hand on Daniel's head tightened, and Daniel couldn't stop the strangled yelp when he felt the tips of Ra's glove digging into his skull. His gaze turned to Jack again and saw the colonel straining, red faced, leaning towards the center of the room as if he would pop his own arms to get there. Daniel tried to calm down, not let Jack see the apprehension and shut his eyes and waited for the fury to begin.

"I said who dared to heal you?" Ra roared.

"Apophis."

Daniel's eyes shot open at Teal'c's words. He twisted his head just as Ra turned as well.

Teal'c stared back at Ra with a calm expression, an odd match to the awkward dangling pose he made hanging from the chains on his wrists. The dark warrior paid no heed to the staff weapon jabbing at his chest. He raised his head without fear, eyes calm as if he was standing at attention rather than hanging like a piece of meat on Ra's wall.

"My lord Apophis cured him of your punishment."

"Apophis?" Ra repeated in disbelief. He turned back to Daniel. "He would not dare defy me or our alliance."

Daniel couldn't stop himself. "Like he would believe you would...honor the alliance. He knows you're eyeing his system already."

Teal'c's eyes glinted dangerously. "Apophis knew you would no longer be in power with the rebellion rising beyond your control."

"Yeah, good ole Apophis," Jack drawled, inwardly wincing at his own words. Good ole Apophis? "Great guy. Promised us this world in exchange for your head. I thought it was a sweet deal."

"A perfect bargain, sir," agreed Carter. She pretended not to notice Ra's face growing red. "They got us the ships, the weapons, told us when you'd be here."

Ra glared at them, the blade slack in his hands. His Jaffa looked at each other nervously, having heard Apophis' name mentioned.

Jack grinned wickedly at Ra, at his infuriated expression. "What's the matter? Snake got your tongue?" The pharaoh's eyes shone angrily at them all, the calm expression gone from his young face. "What's wrong?" he taunted on. "Nothing going as you planned? Not the nice neat little planet you thought?"

"You're losing control of your own people," Daniel added. "Did you know they're rebelling against you right now? Conspiring to throw you off your throne as we speak?"

The colonel didn't think Ra could get any redder, but the Goa'uld flushed with hot rage. The colonel saw Teal'c testing the chains, considering what Jack had and knew his alien friend would have a better chance. So Jack turned everyone's focus on him, drawing the attention away. All he needed was another push at Ra, to egg him on and the pharaoh would demand Jack be released, to be executed first and then Teal'c would have a chance to break free without the guards so close by. "So much for being a god," Jack quipped, his grin growing.

"SILENCE!"

Clamping shut, Jack glowered at Ra, still on top of his friend, but he kept the knowing smirk on his face. The Gou'ald was beyond rage at this point, the blade shaking so hard it went from Daniel's left shoulder to a spot over his liver. Jack stilled, his mouth dry when he saw the knife steady.

Ra laughed.

"What's so funny?" Jack demanded as the Gou'ald stopped.

"You are, Shova." Ra moved down to sit on the back of Daniel's thighs and ran the tip down Daniel's back again, stopping at the back of the pants. He sneered at the humans by the wall, his eyes glowing once with white fire. "Did you think I would allow such a thing to happen? Apophis will regret considering an alliance with the doomed people of the Tau'ri." He turned to gaze down at Daniel now, smirking. The blade hooked the waistline, lifting it a bit. He chuckled when he felt the archeologist tense underneath him. Lowering, he hissed into Daniel's ear.

"I wonder...how long it would take before you scream for your brother again?"

Daniel closed his eyes.

Ra moved away, still on top of him, refusing to let Daniel defend himself. "_Re'klya_ shu te neteru," he hissed, the knife twitching to sink deeper, the pants fabric ripping a little.

"No!" Carter shouted, eyes wide with shock. "Daniel!" Jack and Teal'c strained forward, their bonds rattling their protests loudly.

The pharaoh smiled back at them, eyes like slits as he tensed his muscles and-

"Neteru chun Ra."

The Goa'uld's head snapped up at the disembodied voice floating around the room. "Shel tak Jermak!" He rose, upset at the interruption. Stalking over to his throne, he waved his hand device over the other armrest, another gem glowing once activated.

A screen materialized just behind Daniel's legs. The archeologist shakily turned his head and stiffened when he saw Sha're's face behind Jermak's shoulder, the Goa'uld general, bruised, bloody and very much in control of the ship they had taken. Daniel whipped his head back to Jack, alarmed. The colonel looked just as grim.

"Jermak," Ra raised an eyebrow at the general's state. He switched to his language, the smooth words rolling off sounding amused. "Shen shu cha, Jermak?" From his tone, it was obvious he was curious about what had happened and was not at all bothered by the state his general seemed to be in.

The image flickered as the ship took a hit on its shields. "My lord," Jermak pleaded in Goa'uld. "You must bring down Queen Hathor's shields on her ship!"

Daniel stared at the screen as Ra replied dryly, "And why would I wish to do that?"

"She has gone mad! She wishes to destroy you and your ship for a...for a _re'klya_!"

Ra looked over at Daniel, pointing to him with a lazy sweep of his arm. "Do you mean this _re'klya_?"

Jermak's eyes bulged, head larger as he leaned into the screen. "He...he lives? How..."

"I would like to ask you the very same question, General Jermak." Ra rose from his throne, an angry wave of his arm towards the guards. "As I would like to know how a Shova and the rebellion leader were able to enter my rediscovered Chapa'ai structure and cause such chaos!"

Jermak's voice went almost as high pitched as a squeal, the Goa'uld words rolling out rapidly to an almost incoherent babble. "My lord, I do not know! I only know of Hathor's treachery! I can't fight her off without the shields down."

Ra studied the general. "I was told by the Tau'ri you and she plotted against me."

"Lies! Lies, my lord!" Jermak pointed to the screen to Daniel. "I showed you my good faith by beaming him over there after taking off the _re'kly_a!"

Daniel's eyes grew into huge circles, whipping back to Jack, who had no clue what was happening, but his concern grew as well when he saw Daniel's.

"Really?" Ra strolled down to Daniel, tilting the head back, the archeologist unable to break away. Dark eyes focused on the small scabs healing on Daniel's temples, a finger stroking the area. "He looks quite well to me."

Jermak's voice quickened, babbling as his ship rocked under the fury of battle. "My lord! You must believe me! I took him and sent him to you as soon as I had punished him in your name!" He pointed to Daniel through his screen. "This one is false! He is not the one I sent to you!"

"This ship has five teleports, one in each battle chamber and one in my royal court. I see no offering here except for the _re'klya_ I captured myself," Ra said smoothly, letting go of Daniel with a sniff. "How am I to know this gift you claim to have sent is true?"

The screen screeched unpleasantly, sparks flying as the ship took a direct hit. "My lord! You must believe me!" Jermak lurched to the side, almost out of view when Hathor's ship struck again. Jermak's eyes were wide now with none of the arrogance he'd worn before. "I am loyal to your name! I bow to the sun in your honor! I would not deceive you! Search the other battle chambers! I sent him there! Please! I beg you! Lower her shields!"

Ra studied the frantic look on Jermak's face. He walked away to his throne, ignoring Jermak's calling. Slowly, he sat down on his throne again, crossing his legs, finger tapping his chin, the other hand drumming against the armrest. He pretended to consider it.

Daniel watched as Jermak's image flickered and distorted as the ship reeled from the assault. Jolinar and Maybourne, their determined scowls unchanged, stood behind Jermak, the guards holding them visible.

"Very well." Ra rose again. "I will see what deception you have for me. If I find not a _re'klya_, I will lower _both_ your shields and sit back to watch your destruction of each other."

Jermak's face blanched visibly under his bruises and twisting reception of the monitor. "I assure you, my lord, there are no lies in my words."

"We shall see." Ra caressed the stone on his right armrest, and the screen folded into a smaller box, smaller and smaller until it vanished completely.

He looked back at Daniel. "Another _re'klya_?" He went to Daniel, standing over him and gazed down at him. "Explain."

Daniel kept his head down, staring scornfully at Ra's shadow on the tiles.

A foot stomped on his shoulder, and Daniel gasped.

"Hey! Why don't you come and try me on for size, you slimy bastard?"

"Che," Ra said, snorting with disgust and removed his boot as if he'd stepped on something foul. He walked away from Daniel, past the prisoners, motioning with an idle flip of his hand for his Jaffa to follow. To Daniel's amazement, Ra took all his guards, stopping briefly to touch the statues lining the columns like sentries before slipping out of the curtain to his far left.

And suddenly, they were all alone.

"Uh..." Jack looked to his left, then right. "Tell me it isn't that easy. He just left us?"

"O'Neill." Raising his leg, Teal'c rubbed his boot against his right foot, unknotting the ties, pulling it off half way to dangle the footwear off his foot. Jack frowned, not sure why Teal'c was doing this until the Jaffa heaved the boot as far as he could toward the direction Ra had gone.

A few inches away from where Daniel was, the boot contacted something. Sparks spread from impact into a crackling web of energy, revealing an invisible wall before the footwear burst into flames.

"Oh." Jack winced.

Daniel stared at the smoldering boot and nodded mutely.


	48. Chapter 47

**CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN**

Anderson groaned, wondering why the room was spinning, deciding whatever that drink was he'd had was pretty damn good, and he'd better remember the name of it for the next time. But as he sat up and felt something on top of his legs, he froze, memory flooding back of a guard suddenly dropping out of nowhere from the ceiling above, cold cocking him with a giant fist.

"Oh crap," he murmured, wincing as he massaged his jaw.

"You could say that again," another groaned.

Anderson peered down and stiffened, Major Ferretti rising halfway, hand to his stomach with a grimace.

"Sir?" Anderson whispered tentatively.

"Not so loud, Sergeant." A louder groan now, Ferretti sat up, hands on his knees, breathing heavily. "Damn bastards...Where are we?"

"Looks like the cells, sir."

Ferretti squinted, scrubbing his palm over his cropped hair, wincing when he found a lump on the back of his head. "Remind me I've got something to give back to Mister Jermak."

"Yes, sir." Anderson scanned the cells. He pointed to the open vent in the cell to their right.

Ferretti narrowed his eyes. That would be too easy. As much as he liked to think the snakes were dumb, he also knew they wouldn't just leave their own escape route open for their enemy to use too. Ferretti silently jabbed a finger towards the door. Anderson nodded, agreeing. There was probably a guard outside.

"Get in there," Ferretti mouthed, pointing to the open vent, "and see where it leads."

Anderson murmured an affirmative and crawled into the vent without another word.

Waiting, Ferretti frowned as he felt the ship shudder. Were they under attack? His frown deepened as another vibration shook the ship so hard he could have sworn he saw the cell bars rattle. The walls trembled like something was shaken loose. He rubbed his palms together, mentally sighing. No gun, no knife. He checked inside his boots and found only the pocketknife he kept there for small tool jobs. Not exactly useful for trying to save the world. He glowered at the stone on the cell wall, the eerie dim light glowing steadily despite the ship's upheaval.

"Sir?"

Ferretti rose to his feet, waiting impatiently as Anderson squeezed his tall form out of the vent. "Well?"

"You're right: one guard outside, directly behind the door. We can't go through the vent though. It's less than a foot away from his viewpoint. Got my rifle, too." Anderson frowned. "I liked that particular piece."

"You can get it back when we figure a way out." Ferretti looked over to his man worriedly. "Did you see the others?"

"No, sir. Booker should have been two doors down, guarding the nuke. The others..." The sergeant looked worried. "They were in the control room with the general, that Tok'ra woman and Doctor O'Neill."

Ferretti paced around the tight space. "Damn, damn, damn. After this, I'm going to get myself a good stiff drink."

"You get us out of here, sir, and I'll buy you that drink."

The major glared back at the innocent looking soldier. He grinned suddenly, gaze drifting over the man's soldier, eyeing the light on the wall. "You care to put that in writing, soldier?"

"If I had a pen...sir." Anderson tracked Ferretti walking around him to the back wall. "Uh, sir?"

"What do you suppose this thing is made of?" mused the major, poking it with his pocketknife.

"Uh...rocks?"

Ferretti glared at the sergeant. "Very astute, soldier, but what about the glowing thing inside?"

"Uh...batteries?"

"Anderson, I swear if you—"

The sergeant shrugged. "Sorry, sir. Booker's been hanging around for so long I'm beginning to talk like him."

"Well, stop that." Ferretti tapped at the rock again. The palm size stone didn't even flicker when he rapped it harder.

"Maybe if we get some gum and masking tape, we could make a grenade to blow the do—" Anderson stopped at Ferretti's gaping. Sheepishly, he shrugged. "Sorry, sir. Saw it on TV once. Some old reruns. It was just a suggestion."

"Make a grenade," Ferretti muttered, disgusted. "I seriously doubt..." He trailed off, staring at the stone. "Hm..."

"Uh...I was kidding about the gum. I don't have any."

"No, no." The major waved Anderson to come closer. "Now I'm figuring this has got its own power source, right?"

Anderson, puzzled, nodded mutely.

"So it has got some pretty hefty juice inside this thing. Probably some fancy gizmos to make it work despite all that's going on in this ship. This could be packing really major power." The major tapped the surface of the stone. "What happens when you drop a light bulb?"

"It breaks after the filament inside blows."

Ferretti nodded grimly, pulling out the blade from his utility. "We'd better start digging this out."

SG1SG1SG1

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"No luck," Kawalsky announced, throwing up his hands as the seven symbols faded the moment he pressed the eighth one. "Okay, Louis! Your turn!"

"Turning the ring now!" the captain in the observation booth hollered back. The Stargate turned, the power conduits bracketed around the portal squealing in protest.

Kawalsky turned, nodding to John, who had climbed down from the booth to check the hallway. "How does it look?"

Shaking his head, John lowered his voice. "Can sort of hear some explosions behind that pile we made to block this entrance. Could be the commander or it could be our snake friends trying to get in."

The other soldier scowled. He watched as the seventh symbol faded. "Doesn't look like the commander made it with the power."

"You never know. She may come through." John blinked, surprised at his words.

Kawalsky stared at him. "You know...our three minutes were up already."

"We can't contact Jolinar and Dan so we can't go up there, and we need to let them know what the hell is going on," John explained casually.

"Commander ordered us to leave if the three minutes were up, Cap." Kawalsky gave John a sideways glance as he tapped the symbols over again. "She gave you an order."

John sighed as once again, the symbols faded. "Well...I never listened to her anyway." He shrugged. "Can't disappoint her now by breaking that tradition."

Kawalsky grunted. "So what now?"

Staring at the doorway, wondering when the Jaffa were finally going to break through, John murmured, "We keep trying."

Kawalsky grinned, agreeing and turned to the observation booth again. "Okay, Louis! Try again!"

And the Stargate began turning once more.

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_So this is what dead's like._ Sammy Hansen stared at the smoke swirling above her, something hard and pebbly underneath her. _I would have thought it would be a lot more...colorful._

"Sammy?"

Was that supposed to be the voice of the higher-up? Sammy blinked, wondering if she could say a thing or two to him about how he'd been screwing up her life so far before he sent her to purgatory.

"Hey, kiddo! You okay? Crap, I think that last blast was a doozy, George."

_Kiddo?_

_George?_

Hansen struggled, her elbows pushing her up, her head lifting in a monumental effort. She blinked when she saw Jacob Carter staring down at her, face streaked with black paint and openly concerned.

"Where are your wings?" she asked in a dazed voice.

"Wings? Excuse me?" Jacob turned to talk to someone over his shoulder. "Tell the sergeant she's okay, and keep at it. Someone got a radio working yet?"

"Not yet, General."

"And where's that damn med kit?"

Sammy blinked again and frowned at the taste of soot in her mouth. "D-dad?"

Jacob's head whipped back, mouth slightly open. "What did you say?"

Now Hansen could see a pair of legs in armor sticking out across the room she was trapped in. The last thing she remembered was the owner of those legs holding a staff weapon right at her nose. "What a sec..." She hissed when a hand pressed against the back of her head. "I'm not dead, am I?"

Jacob grinned broadly, hands sweeping out towards their surroundings, the door partly gone, including half the wall for the room. "Not unless you think heaven looks like the bottom of someone's shoe, no."

The commander sat up. "Wait! You're not dead either!"

Another grin. "I have to admit, it was kinda hairy there, George cutting it pretty close, but we were able to drop down fast enough to avoid the blast although we were sure queasy after—Oof!"

A warm feeling she hadn't felt in a long time flooded over her, and Hansen reached forward, her arms around Jacob's neck. The former general was startled at first, but he returned the embrace with a sigh.

Abruptly, Hansen pulled back, flustered. "Uh...wait a minute...how did you guys get here?"

General Hammond stuck his head in, wiping the black paint off his cheeks. "Jacob, that hole we punched to get in made a pretty good mess. Can't use that elevator shaft anymore. That's completely gone. Wilmington said—" Hammond stopped when he saw Hansen was alert. "Commander! Good to see you up and around."

"Uh, thank you, sir. Good to see you're all okay, but how...I mean..." Sammy got up shakily, brushing off the dust that seemed to have gathered all over her.

"When we surfaced, we tried for Denver. But then we heard word about Ra coming, Jermak suddenly taking off from his home away from home for some far out planet," Jacob explained. "We figured we'd better try to get back into the mountain ourselves in case you guys couldn't find a way back here. We were camping outside the base, heading into that auxiliary tunnel, trying to figure out how we were going to sneak in when a whole bunch of guards started running in this direction." Grinning, the general shrugged. "Figured if they were running, it could only mean our guys were here so we followed after them and threw a couple of grenades when we saw the guards had someone."

Hammond smiled, reaching out to pat her on the shoulder. "I think that blast took out not only the guards but also stunned some of your men."

Shaking her head, Hansen asked, "What about Siler? Is he done yet?"

Jacob nodded. "Just about. Your men mentioned some sort of time limit?"

Hansen stiffened, checking her watch, grumbling as she realized the thing was smashed. When she patted her vest, she swore strongly, feeling the shattered remains of her radio. "Lee! What's our time?"

"Deadline passed a minute ago, Commander."

"Damn. I need a radio!" Hansen brushed past her father and Hammond, retrieving her rifle as she went down the hallway. "Anyone's line open?"

Siler stuck his head out. "Commander! I think I have it working now."

"Great," Hansen snapped as she did a quick inventory, grimly noting the one dead body, a jacket draped over the soldier's face. "Too bad we might not have anyone up there to dial!"

One of the soldiers, hand to his head to hold down a bloody bandage waved his radio. Hansen took it, made a face at the cracked exterior, the surgical tape wrapped around it after hasty repairs. "Blue team, this is Red. Blue—"

_"Commander, you guys okay down there?"_ Kawalsky's voice popped back excitedly.

John's voice came in as well. _"Commander, we can't get the Giza to dial the eight symbols and the natives—"_ He paused as a muffled explosion was felt. Hansen could feel the vibration under her boots. _"Are getting restless. Maybe another few minutes before they come busting in here."_

Hansen glared at the radio. "I thought I told you to get out if you didn't hear from us."

_"Oh,"_ John said dryly through the speaker. _"My watch must have stopped."_

Sammy was about to bark something else when Jacob took the radio from him. "O'Neill, this is Carter."

_"Sir!"_ This time, O'Neill sounded genuinely pleased. _"It's good to hear from you."_

Jacob smiled. "Yeah, so I've heard." He gave his daughter a look. The commander harrumped and went back to hustling her men to gather their gear. "Look, we're sort of...stuck down here now. Shaft's pretty much gone thanks to our...rescue mission. We got the power going so you should be able to dial now. Is Jolinar there with you and your brother?"

Dead silence.

Hansen whipped her head back towards the radio. She took the device and pressed it close to her lips. "Captain? Where's General Maybourne and the others? Shouldn't you have transported them down by now?"

This time Kawalsky jumped in. _"We still can't reach them, Commander."_

The remaining leaders gave each other a concerned look. Jacob motioned to Sammy, pointing to the radio. Hansen nodded, agreeing. "Okay, then. You're going to have to go with Captain Ferretti and Captain O'Neill in their place."

Hansen heard three yelps through the radio_. "Us, sir? We're not diplomats!" _Kawalsky could be heard trying to calm Ferretti in the background. _"I...I don't even speak alien whatever...I don't know what they speak!"_

Hammond took the radio with a sigh, eyeing the ruined hallway. He could hear muffled sounds as Jaffa reinforcements arrived. "Captain, we have no other member to represent us. Everyone on that ship for all we know could be out of reach or worse—dead." He gave the rubble another glance. "There's no way we can get there in time. We—"

A small tremor shook the floor.

"General Hammond." Hansen stood there with all her men. "We've checked everywhere. There are no other available exits except for the way you came."

"Which we blocked off where they are right now," Hammond finished darkly.

_"Sir?"_ Kawalsky's anxious voice broke through again.

Hansen stared at the collapsed escape route and quietly spoke into the radio. "No one's going to go up there and relieve you, Captain."

O'Neill spoke up, worried. _"Commander?" _

She sensed her men calmly going back to their places. A quick glance at their faces told her they were ready, the fear, the uncertainty they had before, hanging in the dark shaft were gone. She gave them a small but solid smile.

_It has been an honor_, she thought as she clicked the radio back on again. "Captain...there's no other way out for us. Dial those symbols and get these bastards off my planet. Don't try miracles to help us. If we make it, then we make it. If we don't...then good luck to you all."

The radio was silent again and Sammy thought they were gone, carrying out her orders. She watched as Jacob and a few others moved the Jaffa bodies to the center to provide as much cover as they could.

Suddenly, the radio crackled back to life again._ "Commander, wait."_

Sammy frowned at the radio. _"I said no miracles, Captain O'Neill."_

_"No, listen. Major Carter left us the timer for the plastique they'd rigged above you guys where you first climbed in the shaft. They may still be working. We can blow them, and they should come down over those snakes banging at the door."_

Jacob snorted. "Or permanently seal us in here and provide us our tomb."

"Well then, we're dead anyway, aren't we?" Hammond countered. He looked at Hansen. "Tell him to do it."

"You heard the general, Captain," she spoke into the radio. She could hear the guards scraping at the rubble, pawing their way through to them like determined predators.

_"Get as far back as you can from that center hallway where the shaft was. I don't know how powerful the blast will be."_

"We're fifty meters away from where we emerged from the shaft," Hansen told John. "Just do it. If I'm not dead, you'll be hearing from me."

John's voice was as wry and sarcastic as she'd encountered with the other O'Neill. _"Looking forward to it, Commander. I'll set it for a minute."_ He signed off abruptly.

Hansen spun around, waving everyone to move back. "Okay, people. To the power room. Move it. That's as far back as we can make it."

"Commander!" a soldier suddenly shouted, pointing behind her.

Snapping her eyes forward, she saw the rubble tumbling away, revealing a space of air close to the ceiling. She could see the top of the Jaffa helmets as they tried to peer inside. When she saw the staff weapon sticking through, she turned back, shoving one young face ahead of her, grabbing another.

"Move, move, move!" she hollered as a blast charred the floor she stood on.

Weapon fire darted back and forth, guns and staff weapons, the ceiling above them raining dust as the activity shook its support. Crowded around the power room, the hum of the naquada reactor drowned out by their shouting for more ammo and the gunfire, Hansen almost didn't hear Kawalsky shouting out the warning. But she knew they set off the charges because suddenly, the floor heaved, the lights blinked out, and everything roared.

Hansen slammed into someone who grunted, arms above her head as the ceiling finally gave up and fell down, wires and metal tumbling uncaring over tender human bodies. She could see hawk helmets swaying under the power of the blast, the floor above collapsing over the Jaffa and then—

It became dark. And quiet.

SG1SG1SG1

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Ferretti felt the crystal orb, still glowing its damn light and grunted, impressed by how heavy it was. Gossamer threads wove into a sparkling globe of light. It gave the illusion of being light, airy, but it felt as heavy as a coconut.

"This better do the trick," he muttered, studying the sergeant who was running in place. "Calm down, Anderson."

"Just trying to get ready, sir."

"You look like you need to pee. I said calm down." Waving the orb at Anderson, Ferretti gestured towards the shut door. "Who should try for it?"

Anderson shrugged. "I did a little baseball back in high school, sir. I could try."

"Okay." Ferretti dropped the globe in Anderson's palm. "Go for it."

The other soldier spat into his palm, nodding to himself and drew back his arms to pitch.

Annoyed, Ferretti folded his arms. "Sergeant, we're not playing for the World Series. Just throw the damn thing."

"I was wondering, sir," Anderson murmured as he readied himself.

"About what?"

"Well..." The sergeant started to roll back his shoulders, beginning to swing his arms forward for the pitch. "What if the door's really strong and the explosion just blows inside here instead?" He tossed the orb as hard as he could.

"What? Wait! Don't throw—"

The crystal exploded on contact, thunder making the soldiers drop to their knees, hands over their ears. Smoke filled the room, the light that flashed on impact gone. But instead of darkness, Ferretti raised his head and saw light. Lots of light.

It was coming from the hallway.

Scrambling to his feet, he stumbled forward, lurching as the ship shook under his feet, and gawked at the door, now in pieces, covering the senseless Jaffa, his staff weapon sticking out like the Wicked Witch of the East's feet when Dorothy's house fell on her.

The major spun around, waving a finger at his sergeant. "Next time," he hissed. "Ask the questions before you throw anything explosive!"

Anderson numbly nodded his head, eyes glued to the floor at the damage. The pieces jumped slightly as another tremor sent the ship rocking.

Ferretti sighed. "Now, where did you say Booker was?"

Wordlessly, he pointed to a door a few spaces down. Grabbing the staff weapon, Ferretti took a quick glance down one of the hallways. He scowled checking to see if anyone was running to investigate. The ship was still trembling, the explosion unnoticed by anyone, muffled sounds of explosions and blasts echoing inside and outside the vessel. His lips pressed together. Definitely under attack, he thought. Apparently, no one had heard them because of that, but the major wasn't about to stick around to be sure. Instead, he hurried to the door Anderson pointed out, jabbing the symbol to open it. As it flew open, Ferretti skidded to a halt when he saw Booker tied up, looking very upset, hopping on his rear when he saw his CO, the nuclear bomb still in the locked case.

"Mmph! Mm m mukin mil!" Booker was saying.

"What?" Anderson quickly untied his comrade, giving his friend a quick pat on the back. "You okay?"

"Took you long enough," Booker complained.

While Anderson glowered at his friend's ingratitude, Ferretti examined the nuke, satisfied that the Goa'uld were too puzzled by it to try and tamper with it, leaving it alone in its container. Hand running at the sides of the case, the major sighed in relief when he found the trigger timer, the palm size device a reassuring weight in his hands.

"Sir?" Looking up after freeing Booker, Anderson wondered why Ferretti was opening the case.

The major flipped the toggle on the side, punching a few buttons on the nuke, the screen lighting up immediately with red digits.

Anderson and Booker sat up straighter, alarmed.

"Uh...Major Ferretti?" Booker hedged. "Permission to ask what are you doing...sir?"

"I'm blowing up the ship," muttered the major as he made a few more adjustments.

"Oh..." Booker looked at Anderson. "Guess I don't owe you that fifty bucks then, dude." The sergeant rolled his eyes.

Ferretti shot his men an exasperated look. "After we get everyone off the ship of course."

His two teammates were more than happy to nod in agreement.

"That is," Ferretti grumbled, imagining how many Jaffa were probably protecting the control room where the teleport rings were. "If we can get the jump on the guards."

"We can use the stones like we did before," Anderson suggested. "We've got a staff weapon. We could blow them up."

"And blow up our buddies at the same time," the major pointed out.

Booker and Anderson bowed their heads, thinking before finally, the chubby lieutenant snapped his fingers and grinned. "I got it!"

Expectantly, Ferretti stared at Booker as he pointed to the wall, his hands waving long shadows around the room as the stones gleamed. The lieutenant looked so excited Ferretti stopped himself from demanding what the hell he was talking about and watched as Booker waved his hands again. A grin slowly formed as he realized what the lieutenant was trying to say. Ferretti nodded.

"See if you can find any more of those stones," the major ordered. As the two soldiers went off, the major went around again, studying the nuke. Carefully, he pressed down a switch, the screen on the nuke popping up the word "Standby". Then, his jaw set, Ferretti pressed down the toggle on his hand held device.

The numbers on the bomb's screen blinked, then slowly began ticking down.

Fifteen minutes and counting.

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SG1SG1SG1

It was cold.

He didn't know where he was, but it was cold.

He thought hell would be a lot warmer than this.

A jolt of pain racked his body, stabbing from his belly all the way up to his head.

He screamed.

It hurt. Why did it hurt?

_"I had so wanted to do this personally."_

That's right.

He was dying.

Curling tighter into a ball, Dan gasped as the reality of it all came full force, coupled with the red heat of pain scorching through every nerve in his body. What was cold before wherever he was, the replacing torment was hot enough to be hell.

Was this it?

Was he going to die in some unknown part of Ra's ship?

The thought of him even in the same universe with that monster made him shake more.

John.

John was still down there, fighting a war Dan could no longer wait around for to end.

It just wasn't fair.

Dan groaned, something gurgling out of his throat. He spat it out, the most movement he'd been able to achieve since coming to this place. The taste was metallic, warm.

Blood.

His breathing quickened. He flailed his hands, empty space the only thing felt. He tried to sit up, maybe crawl to somewhere he could roll over and die before Ra could find him. But his stomach clenched, revolted, and he fell back to the ground screaming. The last convulsion involuntarily opened his eyes, head tilted back as he cried out. As he did, a jolt of color filled his vision. Dan shuddered still, eyes wide open, staring at his knees drawn close to his body.

He could see.

Shifting, arm wrapped around his own middle, Dan used the other hand to try and rub his eyes but stopped midway to look at his hand.

He could see.

He laughed.

Bitterly, the sound came out rather than words howling why now. He laughed at the irony of finally regaining his sight only to see gold colored walls, black marble floors, severe looking hawk statues and broad tables circling the ring he was lying on.

Wait a minute.

Dan raised his head, straining as his body protested. He squinted, focusing, the tables blurry before, now sharpening to consoles with stones blinking constantly, statues of Horus, the curved short beak, surrounding the stations, telling him they were important.

Where was he?

Dan knew, he remembered Jermak's voice hissing how he was going to Ra's ship. This place...It looked...no...it felt familiar.

The realization made his body jerk, and tears sprang from his eyes as the sharp twist in his gut made him regret the move.

The battle chambers.

Dan remembered being dragged on a chain like a dog by Ra to one of the chambers that resided at the lower corners of Ra's ship. He remembered a similarly cold room, crashing into a flat surface before bumping into statues, statues like the ones he could now see standing over the consoles.

Machello's tablets told of shield controls in the room. A function that would allow Ra to control all of the shields, override any other command. A code was needed, a code Daniel and he had cracked along with the map, a code that Dan had memorized symbol by symbol in his mind.

Was it here?

He had to get up.

Dan tightened his shoulders and willed his elbows to lock. But at the last moment, he collapsed back to the floor. Winded, he spat again and saw the bright red spots on the floor next to him.

He couldn't do it. It hurt too much.

His legs shook with the effort. Any minute, Ra was going to come back and...retrieve his property, and the last thing Dan would see before he died would probably be that thing's face.

No.

No!

Dan gritted his teeth, pushing up again, his arms shaking violently as he used them to drag himself across the floor, past the circle drawn on the tiles for the teleport rings, toward the console that looked so far away. So very far away.

Inch by inch, Dan could hear the voices of the dead, many telling him to run, to keep going, the war raging around them, but their pleas grew louder as they demanded Dan survive.

Because he was their best hope.

Or so they claimed.

The last scholar, the only one left able to read the Goa'uld's secrets. The last one.

So many people had died for that idealized last hope.

Catherine.

Frank.

All those people. The screaming in the bunker. They were quiet for so long, and he'd hoped they'd left him alone. But when he dropped down, so close to the controls, yet no longer having the strength to stand up, the voices returned.

God, the screaming. They wouldn't leave him alone. They all screamed why did they have to die in order for a dying man to have a few more lousy days of freedom? Why? What value could his life have compared to all theirs?

_Get up...Get up! Damn you, get up. Just for one last time!_

With a choked cry, Dan stretched out his hand, arm shaking, clawing the edge of the controls so high above his head. Grabbing hold of the edge, he pulled, getting up on his knees, warm blood once more flooding his mouth. The console zoomed close then fled back, blurring then sharpening. He spat again, felt blood trickle down his chest like a slimy hand caress. He didn't care. It didn't matter any more. He just needed to do one more thing, one thing to even the score and ensure someone from his family would survive all this.

Knees shaking, Dan nearly fell on top of the surface, hands clawing the edges of the buttons to keep upright.

With eyes that hadn't been in use for so long, Dan focused as hard as he could on the lettering, the scripts fading into darkness for one frightening moment, then snapping back with startling clarity. Hysterical laughter threatened to break free when he realized these were indeed the controls for the shields.

He wanted to curse Jermak to the grave for sending him to Ra, but the general actually had done him a favor by dropping him here.

Fingers shaking, Dan tapped the appropriate combinations he remembered as best he could from the tablets. Twice, he had to redo it, his memory so cluttered he literally sobbed in frustration. He banged at the buttons with fingers growing numb, resorting to slapping at them when he couldn't press down hard enough. Over and over again until he was hunched over the surface, too exhausted to see if his last try had worked.

The console beeped.

He'd done it. In a few minutes, all the shields in every Goa'uld battleship would crumble, waiting for the first disgruntled slave to take a swing at it.

Dan shuddered, clutching the console until a cough rattling deep in his throat came through, spilling a red splotch onto the controls, then another. And another.

Staring blankly at the spots, his vision already going in and out, Dan wondered why with all that blood coming out of him he couldn't feel any pain. He felt himself sliding backwards off the controls.

Dan landed on the floor sideways, his arms folding awkwardly under him. He was too tired to get them out from being pinned by his own body. Too tired. It was going to be over soon. Soon. What was how he looked lying there going to matter? The ship was going to blow up soon. He knew that Colonel O'Neill and his twin would do it. They said they could.

A sliver of fear ran down his spine, convulsing along with the twisting of his gut. Was he ready for this? Was he?

_John..._

Dan breathed out through his mouth, felt the blood filling it again. He spat it out, idly looking at the brightest red he'd ever seen. This was the very thing he didn't want his brother to see. But his efforts to push John away ended up with John refusing to leave, even going as far as volunteering to...finish the job.

Dan didn't want to die.

He wanted to see Ra destroyed. He wanted to be there and pull the trigger. He wanted to hear his parents, Sara, Jerri, call out in happiness when he and John finally found them. He didn't want to go now in this realm of uncertainty.

A phantom brush against his forehead calmed Dan. The memory of his brother murmuring to go back to sleep lulled his body to stop struggling. His worries seeped away, his fears fading into mist.

Like John said, it'd be okay.

Eyes closing, Dan felt the warm pain slowly fading, the cold of the chamber returning. He smiled softly to himself, letting his body relax. For the first time, there was not a glimmer of pain. He'd never thought he would feel a sensation like that ever again. And Dan welcomed it, bade it to come closer, this feeling of nothingness. It hesitated, standing over the edge of his consciousness. Dan could almost see it as a tangible object, a brass ring and reached out for it. But it wouldn't come, forcing him to lie awake waiting.

Dan opened his eyes again and found the teleport rings had transported his re'klya devices as well. One of them was there, an inch away from his eyes. Quiet, looking so harmless, it sat there in front of his face. Dan closed his eyes again, not wanting it to be the last thing he saw. That or Ra.

The ship grew even colder. But the man took no notice as he silently prayed his friends would destroy this ship before Ra returned to take him back.

"I'll see you in hell, Ra," Dan whispered and waited for that moment to come.

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SG1SG1SG1

Daniel lay on his stomach, the cold air scraping along his exposed back.

"Daniel?" Jack called out again when the archeologist was silent for far too long. He craned his neck, looking, not liking the blank stare Daniel gave when he finally turned his head.

"Do you know what?" the archeologist said drained. "I'm tired of people treating me like some sort of possession." He sat up slowly, tugging at his chains, slumping when it failed.

"And I'm tired of people claiming you as one," Jack quipped, his own chains jangling as he yanked them. "I think we need a sign for you. Property of SGC. Keep off."

Carter stopped what she was doing—trying to relax her hands long enough to see if she could squeeze them through, but her bracelet was actually stopping that hand from doing so. "I think you're missing the point he's trying to make, sir."

"What? I get it. We need a sign for him. What? You want me to hang one that says Mine, Mine. Mine. Hands off?"

Daniel actually laughed, even if it was strained. "Maybe a personal shield instead, Jack?"

"Yeah, so nice eye-glowing snake people would just bounce right off when they get near you—What are you doing?" Jack stiffened as he saw Daniel pulling and tugging at the chains. Even from his distance, he could see Daniel's wrists, raw, red.

"Trying to...ow...see if I can slip my...ow...hands free..." Daniel gave up, wincing as he saw the scrapes on his hands.

"Forget it," Jack told him brusquely, grunting as he rotated his wrists, steeling himself for what he needed to do. "We need your hands to punch those codes and symbols."

"But—" Daniel's eyes widened when he heard a sickening pop and snap, Jack biting back a howl, his legs kicking the wall he was hanging against.

"God damn—son of a—Ah, crap that hurt!" Jack's voice rang out very loud and very annoyed.

"Sir?"

"Are you well, O'Neill?"

"No," the colonel bit out. "I dislocated my damn thumb so..." He grunted as he strained to pull free. "Come on...shit, shit, shit...I knew there was a reason why I don't do this anymore." The colonel hissed as he pulled at his right hand, twisting until finally, with a strangled yelp, he yanked it free, the hand red, scraped raw. "There! I...crap..." He cradled the hand to his chest for a moment, brow knitted together in pain.

"Did that hurt, Jack?"

Jack gave the archeologist across the room a dirty look. "No, Daniel. It tickled—Yes it goddamn hurt!"

Taken aback, Daniel decided it was the discomfort making Jack grouchy. Although, he winced sympathetically, it looks like more than minor discomfort. "What now?"

Cursing under his breath, Jack gingerly patted the pockets of his vest, thanking his luck the guards didn't bother stripping their gear other than taking their packs for inspection. His hand twinge. Okay, it did more than twinge as he searched his pockets.

"Sir? What are you looking for?" Carter turned her head, watching as the colonel finally exclaimed, pulling out a small bottle from his lower waist pocket with two fingers.

"Found it. I knew I had a bottle around."

"Suntan lotion?" Carter blurted as she spied the label.

"Another one of the military's ways of always being prepared," quipped Jack as he unscrewed the cap with his teeth, balancing the bottom with the palm of his free hand. His voice muffled with his mouth full, the rest of the team was still able to make out his words. "Coat your hands with this to see if that helps you slip out of those things, Major." He held the bottle, his thumb tucked in, red and swollen. He shook it over his other wrist, letting the white creamy substance ooze out, the stuff dripping into his sleeve. He stretched the bottle over to Carter and gingerly reached as far as he could, coating her left wrist.

"Try the first hand, then reach for the other." Jack shifted, straining to reach Teal'c's right hand, only managing to get a dab on the Jaffa's skin. The colonel gave him an apologetic smirk. "Sorry, big guy. You're going to have the hard part."

"I will break free, O'Neill." The Jaffa looked across to Daniel. "Have patience, Daniel Jackson. We will release you quickly."

Daniel gave a weak smile. "Take your time. I'm not going anywhere." He shivered as he felt what seemed to be icy fingers running along his back.

The colonel stopped trying to work his left hand out, concerned. "Cold?"

"A little."

Jack stared at Daniel for a moment, eyes drifting to the red circle on his back where Ra had placed his knee. He ground his teeth and took a deep breath, bidding the anger to take a hike and went back to working on his wrist. "Just a little longer, Daniel," he said as calmly as he could.

"Jack, before...Jermak said he sent...the _re'klya_ over."

"What?" Jack froze. "You mean…"

The archeologist nodded, upset. "Dan."

"I saw Jolinar and the general behind him," Carter thought out loud, wincing occasionally as she tugged at her wrists, cuts stinging with the lotion coating the exposed places. "I didn't see Dan."

"I can't believe that guy got out," Jack muttered, his eyes shadowed. Now he knew why they couldn't reach Jolinar before. He could see the worry in Daniel's posture, the archeologist chewing his lower lip furiously, trying to figure out what to do next. "Did Jermak say where, Daniel?"

"Somewhere on this ship. Ra said there were four other teleport areas. The battle chambers."

Carter stopped again. "Would the controls for the shields be there?"

"Could be. Machello mentioned they were accessible anywhere within the chambers inside the maze. The royal chambers, or the courts were at the center of the maze." Daniel nodded towards the throne. "That looks like it controls everything."

Teal'c's hand yanked free, the Jaffa barely making a wince although Jack could see the raw skin, pink in some spots where the scrapes went too deep. Wordlessly, Jack just handed the bottle, and Teal'c coated the other hand.

Carter only paused for a second to gawk at Teal'c's progress before continuing. "We don't have the pendant though."

Daniel shook his head. "We needed it for this room, the royal chambers, but we're already here. We need it to get that shield down though." His face fell. "It's still with John, and we don't know if—"

"They're probably getting ready to get up here. And when they do, they'll find my little _trail_ for them." Wincing, Jack looked at his cut hand again. "Remind me to never do that to my hand again. I'll stick with the traditional bread crumbs next time."

Daniel nodded again, not laughing. He looked at the windows with sorrow.

"We have to get Ra off this planet, Jack."

The colonel sobered, nodding. "We will."

The team fell silent, soft grunts heard once in a while as they worked their hands free.

SG1SG1SG1

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Busy cursing the battle raging in space while his ship tilted crookedly after a few attacks, Jermak took no notice of Jolinar stepping back to where Maybourne was. The Tok'ra tugged carefully at Maybourne's sleeve, catching his attention.

Maybourne tore his eyes away from Jermak's head, thinking of how many ways a Goa'uld could die. Even now, Dan's voice rang in his ears, slowly growing to a roar he knew would never go away. At Jolinar's small pull, he glanced sideways to her. The Tok'ra raised her hand to scratch her cheek with her forefinger, her middle finger twitching as if wanting to point.

The cargo ship lurched as Hathor's ship managed a shot past the cover of his battleship, slamming into the side. Jermak screamed incoherently at the screen, at his ship, telling them to bring Hathor down to her knees. The rage twisted his face to a red mask, teeth flashing as he growled when more and more gliders emerged from both battleships to fight, flashes erupting all over the screen.

Maybourne took the distraction to see what she was looking at, turning his head towards the doorway where a few guards still stood, holding on to their comrades as hostages. His eyes widened; he couldn't help himself when he saw a pair of hand puppet shadows in the form of birds flapping their wings on the golden wall behind the oblivious Jaffa.

Now the general knew the Goa'uld didn't indulge in frivolous things such as that so a small grin tugged at the corner of his mouth as he realized it meant someone else was doing frivolous things right now.

Only it wasn't. Frivolous, that is.

Harry turned back to the Tok'ra, her eyes mixed with puzzlement over the signal and determination knowing it meant some of their friends were free. She suspected it was a message of some kind, the shadows manipulated on the walls directed to them, taking advantage of the confusion, hoping the Jaffa would be too busy staying upright while the ship got tossed around, to be watching their surroundings.

Maybourne watched the hands shaping into sign language on the walls. He grimaced as the ship rocked, the hands disappearing for a while before reappearing. He frowned as he pieced the message together.

"What does it say?" Jolinar whispered low, leaning only a little towards Maybourne. Their guard barked, jerking her back.

Staring at the hands in dismay, Maybourne snapped his head back before the guards realized what he was looking at. When the ship rocked once more, he deliberately lost his balance, colliding with Jolinar. The Tok'ra was too surprised to do anything more than fall down, Harry over her.

"Listen. They're saying on the count of three, to tell everyone to duck and fast!" Maybourne managed say before the guard watching them yanked at his arm, pulling him away before Jolinar could respond.

The Tok'ra frowned but said nothing, watching out of the corner of her eye as Maybourne signaled to his men, hands dropping to his sides, his left hand towards them was bunching, releasing, pointing to get his command across. When he saw one of the men nod then cough, Maybourne pretended to cough, too. He hoped whoever it was out there would take that as a go ahead.

Jermak spun around, glaring at the humans, wondering why they were making so much noise. But as the screen flashed and his battleship shielding him from Hathor took another hit, the Goa'uld faced the screen, screaming at the monitors as he ordered his men on his ship to attack Hathor's vessel.

A hand flashed on the wall. One.

Maybourne visibly tensed, his men doing the same.

Two.

Maybourne stuck out two fingers.

Three.

"Now!" Maybourne abruptly shouted, startling the guards. He pulled Jolinar close to him, dropping to the floor, surprising the guards as all the soldiers did the same. Harry heard something glasslike roll by the guards outside of the door, then a staff weapon being charged. Jermak spun around, demanding to know what was going on, but as the guards turned towards the sound outside the door, others trying to grab the soldiers now scrambling deeper into the room, the staff weapon they heard outside was fired.

Maybourne felt a ripple in the air lashing out at them, light colliding with sound. He actually felt the floor drop then slam back up again at him. With an "Oof!" he heard his men grabbing the dropped rifles, Jolinar getting up before he could.

"Put your weapons down!" Maybourne heard Major Ferretti yelling at someone, he couldn't tell who, various shouting and the ship's shrieking alarms as it couldn't take the stress much longer. He raised his head blearily. Getting up to his feet in a rush, he saw Jolinar and Jermak locked in what would have fooled some as a complicated dance if it weren't for the murder in her eyes.

Ferretti grabbed Maybourne by the arm. "I got it rigged to go in fifteen minutes! We already lost two! We have to go!"

It? Fifteen minutes? Gaping at him, Maybourne's mind still spun so he could only mutter a, "What?"

"Sir, we have got to go!" Ferretti whistled sharply to his men, the soldiers already gathering near the outline of a teleport ring. "Miss Jolinar!"

With a push, the Tok'ra woman shoved Jermak away. Anderson immediately fired his weapon. The Goa'uld general jerked once as a bullet caught him high on the shoulder. As he fell back with an outraged cry, Jolinar reached forward and snatched his ribbon device. She lunged for the controls, device in her palm, giving the dials a vicious sweep to activate them.

"Go!" Maybourne snapped back to his senses, hauling men by the collars, making sure they got into the boundaries of the teleport rings as the activated portal hummed. He glanced up, saw the first ring drop from above. He was about to tell his men to get ready when he felt someone beside him ripped from their spot. As he turned his head, he saw Jermak, his face murderous with an arm around Jolinar. The two struggled as the rings quickly stacked up, freezing Maybourne and the others in place. Before Harry could call out, he saw Jolinar's determined face as she struggled with their enemy.

"Leave! It will be okay!" she shouted, shoving Jermak away from getting to the controls, the ribbon device flashing as she pushed the Jaffa back away from the rings. Then the blue beam came down, and Maybourne saw nothing more of the ship. The next time he was able to move, he found himself in the middle of a ruined embarkation room, Kawalsky looking none the worse for wear, screaming for them to duck.

Duck?

Maybourne turned around and blanched as he saw the eighth chevron light up and his men a few feet away from the Stargate itself. Shit!

"Get down!" the general hollered as he dropped to his stomach. He heard the whoosh of the wormhole and felt a wind zip over his head. When he finally dared to raise it, he saw everyone's shocked faces, turned his head to the left and saw Booker's rifle that was sticking up in the air when he dropped, sliced neatly in half where the wormhole had caught it, smoke still wafting from it.

"General Maybourne?" Kawalsky asked tentatively. "Uh...is that you?"

Harry raised his head higher and turned to look at the glittering event horizon, gulping. He snapped his head back towards the captain. "The Asgards?"

Kawalsky nodded numbly. "Me, John and Louis were about to go, sir. But since now you're—"

"General Maybourne." John broke through the crowd. "Where's my brother? And Jolinar?"

The officer blanched, confronted with the older O'Neill's anxious face. How do I tell him? He took a deep breath, getting up. "Jolinar was captured in the last moment of our escape. Jermak broke free from his cell and took us by surprise. He...Hathor contacted him, and they argued. Their alliance is off."

Kawalsky frowned. "That's why we couldn't contact you?"

Major Ferretti, brushing his pants clean, shrugged. "They had the lines held up to have shouting matches."

"General…-" John turned to Maybourne, pleading.

"I'm sorry." The words suddenly rang so loud. "Jermak sent him to Ra."

John staggered a step back. He stared at the general with disbelief. "No...he was with Hathor. They were partners, why would he…"

"He wanted to prove his loyalty. Captain..." Maybourne stopped. He didn't know how to tell him, but he started when he saw John, looping his arm through the strap of a rifle, rummaging around the dead Jaffa guards lying around the floor. "Captain? What are you doing?"

"I'm going up there," John said tightly, turning the corpses' hands until he found a glove with the teleport gem. He yanked it off, thrusting his own hand through it. When he raised his eyes, Maybourne was standing over him, shaking his head.

"Captain, Jermak took the_ re'klya_ off."

The world tilted, and John had to set his hand down to steady himself upright. "W-what?" he whispered.

"Before he sent him over...Jermak ripped the devices off before sending him to Ra."

John got to his feet, grabbing a staff weapon and one of the packs. He snagged a sidearm from one of his teammates and tucked it within his tunic. "I have to get him." With a quick flip of the cloak, he let it drape over his armor, concealing the rifle hanging around his shoulder. "The others are up there, too. I can get them back." I have to get Dan. I can't leave him with Ra. Not again.

"Others?" Maybourne turned to Captain Ferretti with concern.

"SG-1, sir."

Major Ferretti stiffened. "What? Wait, Captain O'Neill. We're going with you."

"No." John spun around. "My orders were if I was to go, I was to go on my own. No unnecessary risks to others."

Kawalsky tried to grab John by the arm. "Now you listen to her orders? John, let us go with you."

"You have to go through that Stargate and get help!" John gave Kawalsky a shove towards the Stargate. "That portal isn't going to stay open much longer. You and Louis go with the general!"

Maybourne latched onto John's wrist. "Captain, he may not even be alive any more. None of them."

"I...don't...care..." John hissed. "I'm going up there!" He wrenched his arm free, pressing on the gem at the back of the glove before anyone could stop him.

"Cap!"

"Captain O'Neill!"

The teleport rings materialized, zipping down over John. The captain looked through them to his friends. His mouth was grim.

"Wait for me," he whispered, to them, to Dan. "I'll be back, sir. With all of them."

With a sudden flash of light, John was taken away.

Kawalsky stared at the blank spot where John had stood. "Damn it." He turned to Maybourne. "What now?"

Harry turned to the Stargate. "We wait for Jolinar for as long as we can and hope she can get back to us. Captain, how long before the Stargate closes?"

Louis Ferretti tore his eyes away from the ceiling, having tracked the beam's flight. "Should be ten minutes. But I can't be sure since—"

"We'll give her five." Maybourne glanced up to the ceiling as well. "Then we go."

The other soldiers busied themselves with guarding the entrance, but they glanced back at General Maybourne, Kawalsky and Captain Ferretti. The three silent men stood there in front of the Stargate, rifles held tight, the grimmest faces anyone had ever seen on the usually jovial men as they waited for their last comrade to come back.


	49. Chapter 48

**Author's Note: **Tis a sad thing truly when a story reaches the end. We're almost at that point and I wanted to thank everyone for their reviews, feedback. It's an old story and frankly, I didn't know if people were still reading it! This universe is open to anyone. Someone had asked, pointing out some cameos and yes, the names I threw out were not accidental. "eg" You're welcome to write in this 'verse. Any related fic I would be posting on Stargatefan (dot) com. I'm hoping to go back fully operational by year end. :)

Below may get me tomatoes, but remember...story ain't over yet. Hee.

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**CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT**

"Shel chrak shri," Jermak hissed, grabbing for her hand, trying to get the ribbon device from her.

Jolinar cried out as his fist bunched around her hair and pulled down hard. Her body arched back as he yanked. She did the only thing she could; her hand whipped back and dug deep.

Howling, Jermak staggered away, hands clawing at his own bloody eye socket, screaming in agony as Jolinar stumbled to the controls, the ribbon device waving at the panel to activate the rings once more.

"Jaffa!" Jermak shrieked, pointing to her with one hand, the other covering his wound. "Shen tok! Shen tok!"

His shields were gone.

"Looks like Ra has betrayed you as well," the Tok'ra smiled coldly as she heard the rings descend.

Jermak's good eye flashed angrily and he lunged for her, grabbing her throat just as the rings stacked up. Jolinar struggled, beating him in the face and on the shoulders to get him off, but the beam came down upon them, freezing their positions and whisking them away.

When she heard a few Tau'ri shouting in surprise, her eyes darted to them just as she felt Jermak snatch the ribbon device off her hand, his other arm wrapped around her throat, forcing her to her feet.

"Move away from her!"

"Step away from Jolinar, Jermak!"

Voices, men shouting, and all she could hear was Jermak hissing about how he was going to kill her, then the men in this room. She yanked at the arm restraining her, but she couldn't break free. She sensed the Stargate behind them, lit, flickering as power fluctuated. Why was it still on? Why was no one seeking help from the Asgards?

Maybourne stood there, shouting, but she couldn't hear him with the sound of her own heartbeat rushing in her ears. Odd.

She focused and saw no one was shooting, everyone's guns trained on them, but none firing. Jermak had his back against the Stargate, using her as a shield. And no one was firing.

Jolinar felt the ribbon device press against her cheek.

"I remember a Tok'ra in our clutches once," Jermak hissed, one eye flashing at the Tau'ri, ignoring their demands. The glove's gem warmed against her cheekbone as waves of vibration rippled through her cheek, her eye, her mind. Inside, she could hear a small voice she hadn't heard in a while scream, awakened from her deliberate slumber. "The ribbon device against the brain, focused, can create great torment for the host, then the Goa'uld inside. I greatly enjoyed how that Tok'ra screamed before his mate. She could not scream with him, gagged and tied up to be executed later. It was a shame she escaped."

Jolinar tensed, the memory of Martouf's screaming boiled her blood. The dark rage she had felt the moment she'd escaped Hathor and Jermak's torture chamber and which had spurred her on to this day returned. Her host shrieked from within, screaming for justice, for revenge on any Goa'uld, and Jolinar acted upon both voices. She grabbed Jermak's arm, not to pull free but to keep him there.

"Shoot him!" she yelled, froth bubbling through her mouth as the ribbon device grew to a higher pitch, twisting her insides with a physical pain she had never known before. Jolinar could have sworn she heard both voices come out of her mouth. "Shoot him!"

"Fire and she will die!" Jermak barked in English as the rifles trained on him. He scoffed when he saw the soldiers who'd been up on the ship. "It would be a pity would it not, to save a comrade only to lose her now? Lower your weapons!"

Jolinar was shaking with agony, two voices in one body crying with unbearable torment as the sensation grew, spreading to the rest of her. "Shoot him! Now!"

Maybourne had his hand out, stopping the men from firing. Aghast, he stared at Jolinar, the Tok'ra woman writhing in torment, Jermak's arrogant sneer magnified by the mutilated face. The Goa'uld stood directly in the path of the Stargate, allowing no one to pass.

"Maybourne, we will lose our chance! _SHOOT HIM!_"

"Sir," Kawalsky stepped forward, his voice asking the general to do something, think of something.

Jolinar screamed, body arching, a figure of sparking light as her dress picked up the gleam of the hand device, reflecting the illumination from the Stargate. Her hands were the only parts of her in darkness, clutched around Jermak's arm to keep him there, the Goa'uld general laughing now, thinking no one would dare shoot.

"God help me," Maybourne whispered as he grabbed the rifle from Kawalsky's hands and fired.

Jolinar stopped screaming.

Everyone stood there, staring at Harry Maybourne with shock, eyes wide with disbelief.

Most of all, Jermak.

The Gou'ald staggered away as Jolinar fell to the ruined ramp, staring at the stain of blood on his robes made when the bullet went through both their bodies, dead center of his chest. He took one step back, raising his eyes to Maybourne. His mouth twisted, and Jermak roared, palm out with the hand device, the gem glowing to a hot flash of light towards the general.

Someone fired his rifle.

Jermak wobbled, reaching for Maybourne.

Another fired.

Maybourne raised his head from the floor after Captain Ferretti and Kawalsky tackled him. Jermak was half hunched over, a hand clamped to one of his wounds as he looked at the general, glaring, one eye glowing, the other eye bleeding, coating his face into a red, frightening mask. He clasped his hands together, turning the ribbon device on. A stack of teleport rings came down, the bullets ricocheting off the rings as the soldiers fired.

"Don't let him get away!"

Jermak grinned, hand clasped over his belly. He sneered just as the beam took him.

"Damn it!" Maybourne threw down his empty rifle, furious. He remembered Jolinar and hurried over to the small crowd already gathering around her. He dropped to his knees, clasping a hand over her outstretched one.

"He escaped?" Jolinar whispered.

Captain Ferretti gave a concerned glance to the entrance as he heard soldiers shouting, some running out as they heard Jaffa finally breaking through.

"I'm sorry, Miss Jolinar." Squeezing her hand, Maybourne spied the growing spot of blood. "Will you be able to heal yourself?"

"I...do not know...too much..." Her eyes were sorrowful. "I could not...avenge...for my mate...and Dan-yel...after all..."

Hearing her, Major Ferretti touched her shoulder briefly. "Don't worry about that, ma'am. Before we left, I had the nuke rigged on a timer. He returned just in time to blow with the ship."

Jolinar smiled. "T-thank you..." She turned to Maybourne, pulling her hands away. "You must hurry." She could hear gunfire. "The Jaffa have broken through. You must go through the Stargate now." She gave him a weak push that didn't faze him. "Go...please..."

A hand cupping her cheek, Maybourne smiled sadly. "I'm sorry, Jolinar. I—"

"You did what had to be done. Now you must do this as well. Go...Bring us help. Now..."

Maybourne turned to look at Kawalsky, Captain Ferretti rising to his feet as well. He nodded to the two soldiers. But before he left, he leaned over and placed a kiss on Jolinar's forehead. The Tok'ra smiled tiredly.

"We'll be back, my dear." He gave her a tender smile, filled with regret before he rose to his feet. He looked at his men. "If you can't wait for us, don't. Use the Stargate after us."

The collective group nodded, watching as he, Captain Ferretti and Kawalsky lunged for the Stargate. The event horizon flickered once more then vanished seconds later without a sound.

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John dropped behind a nearby station as soon as the rings released him. He clicked on his armor, the helmet sliding over his face before he dared rise. His staff weapon out, covering the whole general area, he finally lowered it when he saw no one around.

Where was he?

He had only been to the royal court once, never to any other parts of the ship. Ra always had people sent directly to him via teleport. John couldn't discern anything familiar around him. But he couldn't waste any more time.

Spying the red curtains, knowing they concealed doorways, John mentally counted them and stared in dismay. Too many of them. Too many. There was no way he could search them all, and without the tablets Daniel had still had in his pack when he was captured, John was doomed to wander the maze. He thumped the station with his fist, frustrated.

Small movement behind a curtain to his extreme left stilled John. The captain readied his staff weapon, reshouldered his pack and steadily walked forward, pretending to reach for the curtain next to it. Then abruptly, he turned and yanked open the curtain to point his staff weapon at—

Children.

John froze at the sight of a dozen children who looked Abydonian, the boys dressed in kilts, small tunics for the girls. They looked at him and his armor with huge dark eyes.

He took a step towards the huddled children, and they dropped to their knees immediately, bowing, a standard greeting for any Jaffa or for their god.

"Neet," John murmured in dismay. "Don't do that." He reached out a hand and grabbed one child who couldn't have been more than six. Deep tan, hair springy with curls, the girl stared at John's pale hands holding hers. He looked sadly at her through his helmet and wondered what had happened to her parents. He scanned the group, chest clenching as he saw only young and frightened faces, someday to be filled with bruises during Ra's tantrums or with cold expressions as they became trained to be his guards. The little girl in front of him gazed in awe as he pulled his helmet back and showed his face.

"Cre jun Jaffa?" she asked in a trembling high voice.

John shook his head. He pointed to the teleport rings he'd come from. "Go there," he told them in Goa'uld, taking care to pronounce each syllable clearly so there would be no mistake. "I will send you down to some good people. They will send you home."

The children looked puzzled.

"Ch shrel ca Ra?"

Was he sent by Ra? John wanted to laugh. In a way, Ra was his reason for being here, right now, searching for his family. Ra. He nodded and took out the pendant. The children gasped and dropped to their knees again, bowing deeply until their heads touched the floor.

"No, no, no. Please. Come on..." John waved them up, shooing them towards the teleport circle. "Huk cha, kree?" He pointed to the circle on the floor. "Stay here," he advised them. He pulled out a velvety pouch, the dog tags inside tinkling. "Give this to one of the men you will see there. They will understand and help you." He frowned, wondering if his friends would automatically fire, but shook his head. No. Once they saw his signature pouch, they'd know.

The children looked at him unsurely. "Ch shrel ca Ra?" one asked again.

John smiled tiredly. He patted one and went over to the controls. He turned the teleport rings on, shushing the children as they gave frightened squeaks when they saw the rings. He only stayed to watch them go, feeling like he was doing too little too late, then faced the curtains. He just needed to find some more people, a certain bold team and his brother, and go. He knew Ra was here, but he couldn't bring himself to hunt Ra down. Not yet, not now.

Dan needed him.

John chose a curtain at random and entered. He started running, keeping track of every turn, eyes out for a sign. Knowing the colonel, John knew there would be a clue to their whereabouts.

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Pain.

For the first time, Jermak knew pain. His host body, useless after a few pathetic projectiles, was now without the strength he needed to stand properly when he arrived back on his cargo ship. He glared at the screen, the battle still a stalemate with both ships battered, bruised. He snarled at the guards only now coming to, promising them long and painful deaths for their failures.

Their shields gone, Jermak knew the only thing left to do was use the Stargate and return to his home world, rebuild and then return to take the remains of Ra's system. Judging from the way Hathor was acting, she would soon turn against their god as well, and while they bickered like rabid hounds, Jermak would merely pick up after their wake.

Jermak smiled, coughing as he felt his natural healing system ebb the pain away. It wouldn't be enough, and he would need another body. But like Ra, he'd also kept a breeding house full of potential hosts, raised and trained to be ready should the time arise.

Which was now.

"Goodbye my...queen," Jermak hissed, hoping his battleship would be able to get in a last shot. He placed his hand over the controls, wheezing in pain. He needed another host now.

"Shel Jermak!"

The Goa'uld lord spun his head around, seeing the strange device he had disregarded before. His men carried it between them, the numbers flashing red, just turning to three. They looked confused and anxious, knowing the strange red lettering must mean something.

Jermak's face paled as the numbers drew meaning for him. He frantically swept his hand over the controls, staggering to the teleport rings, not bothering to wait for his Jaffa to join him. It would be too late for the Stargate. He saw the rings drop around him just as the count turned to zero.

And Jermak screamed as his world dissolved, taking him with the blast. The scattering spread beyond his ship, grabbing Hathor's ship before it could escape from the fiery tendrils. In a massive explosion, light spread out from the three unshielded ships, a wave of color and fire streaking across space. Not a sound was heard, the voices of the battleships destroyed by the absorbing silence of the universe. So after the brief fire dance, the light faded, leaving nothing in its path except for debris floating serenely in space.

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Kawalsky could have sworn he remembered the ride usually being a hell of a lot shorter and not as nauseating. It went on forever; what pissed him off even more was his nose itched when he dove in, and now he was trapped with the damning sensation for the duration of the ride.

"Oh shiiit!" he yelped, suddenly finding the journey over. Kawalsky sailed like a bird across a few feet before landing hard on the ground. He turned to look at the Stargate, embedded in an odd metallic gray wall, his eyes widening as he saw Ferretti and Maybourne flying out towards him before the wormhole flashed then disappeared. Kawalsky yelped and rolled away, arms over his head. He heard the sickening thuds and lifted his head.

"Ah..." Ferretti groaned, rolling onto his stomach before gingerly pushing himself up onto his knees. He placed a hand on his back and moaned as he stretched the kinks out. "I want my money back...That was a hell of a way to get anywhere." He looked over to Maybourne, tapping him hesitantly. "Sir? Shit, Charlie, I think he's out."

"He's alright though?"

"Yeah." Checking more carefully, Ferretti winced at the coloring bruise. "That ride was not your usual. Took him off guard I guess."

Relieved, Kawalsky looked around the monotonous room: no furniture and no windows. Nothing, save the Stargate.

"Where are those...those alien guys they were talking about?" Ferretti muttered, checking the walls. He didn't see anyone around. "Hello? Anyone out there? Yoo hoo?"

"Yoo hoo?" Kawalsky muttered.

"Gotta say something," Ferretti quipped. "Doesn't look like anyone's home though." He froze as something came to him. "You don't think...you don't think in this reality, Ra beat the Asgards too, do you?"

Kawalsky swallowed. "I sure hope not."

Maybourne groaned a bit, drawing their attention. As they helped him up, Maybourne stiffened, looking past the two soldiers. The captains turned around.

A small alien, gray skinned, with huge unblinking eyes, was standing by the wall opposite the Stargate and gazing at them.

"Uh...uh..." Ferretti clamped a hand over his head, trying to find the words. "Uh...I think that's an alien...sir."

Maybourne nodded mutely, staring at the alien. He gave it a smile to show he wasn't a threat. The gray creature tilted his head. "Smile," he whispered.

Kawalsky and Ferretti blinked.

"Smile. You don't want them to think we're hostile, coming to shoot up the place, do you?" Maybourne dropped his hands to his back, hiding the act of pointing his finger at their rifles.

The two soldiers guiltily dropped their hands from resting on their hanging weapons. Kawalsky gave a smile, feeling like his face would crack, and Ferretti gave one, a little too broad but not showing his teeth.

Kawalsky leaned towards Maybourne, still smiling, nodding at the alien. "General, what do we do now?" he muttered behind a curved mouth, his words distorted.

"Greetings!" Ferretti said loudly. Everyone, including the alien, started at the loud volume. The captain leaned closer to their host, hands open. His voice grew louder and louder as he pronounced each syllable with exaggerated care. His mouth twisted and moved into odd shapes as he spoke loudly as if to his deaf grandmother, hands waving towards each of them. "We're...peaceful...explorers. We...mean...you...no...harm!"

Maybourne and Kawalsky gawked at Ferretti. After a moment, Kawalsky couldn't stop himself, thumping Ferretti in the arm.

"Ow."

"You idiot, what the hell are you yelling for?" Kawalsky hissed.

Ferretti shrugged, plastic grin on his face again, speaking without moving his lips. "I urk ur irk."

"What?"

Rolling his eyes, Ferretti eased up on his smile and said carefully. "It worked for Kirk. Thought maybe it'd be the same here."

"You moron! They don't watch television! They probably don't even understand a word you're saying! You'll probably start an intergalactic war!"

Ferretti paled. "Oops."

Maybourne dropped his face into his hand and sighed.

"Actually," a voice mildly interrupted. The three soldiers jumped, turning back to the small alien, the little mouth slit shaping out the words. "We understand you quite fine."

"W-we?" Kawalsky stammered.

The alien turned its massive head, long fingers pointing at the wall, touching it briefly. The wall wavered, the gray color seeping away, and the three soldiers jumped.

A room opened off where they stood, curved archways spanning for what seemed like miles, and each one had at least a couple of dozen creatures peering back at them. They could see the same type of alien, in all shapes and sizes, huge black eyes looking back at them.

"Jesus..." Kawalsky breathed.

"Why are you here?"

Maybourne tore his stare away, back to the first one.

"When we observed you many years ago, it was deemed you would not be ready for second contact for another hundred of your solar years. There are still seventy more to go. You should not have been able to get here." The alien didn't look or sound angry. Its head tilted, and Harry saw the alien blink its eyes for the first time.

Standing straighter, Maybourne dropped the smile, his eyes conveying all he'd left behind to come here. "We need your help."

The alien stared at him for a long moment, gaze drifting to their attire, to Kawalsky's wound.

"Please explain."

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Daniel massaged his wrists, muttering thanks as Jack used the blade from his bag and pried open the ankle braces. The archeologist was more than happy to get away from the spot, giving the chains and the circle drawn on the floor a little wrinkle of his nose before he stumbled toward the windows.

"Guys...look at that..." The archeologist stood still, his hand stopping from massaging his wrists and pointed to the sky.

Jack looked up from his searching the packs in time to see a bright flash of light that showed up even in the day, a brilliant burst of color across the blue before it vanished as if it had never existed.

"An explosion," Carter murmured, looking over to her CO worriedly. "Do you think it was Jermak's ship?"

"I don't know." Jack went back to his pack, grunting when he found the timers and the plastique. "Everything's still here. Daniel, see if you can find controls for that barrier. Teal'c, see what's behind curtain number one and two, okay? Carter, get over here. Help me figure out if this is going to be enough."

Daniel watched as Teal'c ducked into the curtains. He could hear bare feet slapping on the floor as terrified young servants scampered away like mice. He swallowed, realizing if they blew up the ship, they would go with it.

"Jack," Daniel murmured as he examined the throne and the armrests. "We can't leave them here."

"I know," interrupted Jack. He glanced up and saw dark, scared eyes peering through the curtains, terrified of the strange humans now freed. Too terrified to stop them, too terrified to run. Dozens of kids terrorized by Skaara, no, by Ra. "Find anything, Teal'c?" Jack called out, looking away from the children as they ducked back behind the drapes.

"Nothing, O'Neill," Teal'c called out. "It is only his personal chambers for sleep. I do not even see a sarcophagus in there."

Daniel looked up from the throne. "You don't?"

Jack gave the archeologist a weird look. "Why do you sound surprised?"

"Uh...in Ra's other ship...you know...in our reality...he had one in his personal chambers. I would have thought...Strange." Daniel tapped the gems on the armrests. "None of these control the barrier, Jack. We need to control it from that one." He pointed to the other end of the room where the standing statues with the crossed staffs were.

Jack folded his arms. "Well that's nice, Daniel. Mind telling me how we get there?"

Daniel chewed his lip in thought. "We could blow the shields with the plastique."

Carter paused in searching the bags. "It may not work. You're blasting with energy to eradicate a form of energy. It'll backfire. Unless you can figure out its frequency and have-"

"Ah, ah, ah!" Jack waved both index fingers at her, wincing as his thumb throbbed from moving too much. "Yes or no, Carter?"

"Uh...no, sir."

Jack muttered a "Thank you" under his breath and checked the packs again. He grunted when he found his hunting knife. He scowled, staring at his empty holster.

"Remind me to talk to Supply about redoing our requisition order," he muttered. Making a mental list, he realized all they really had were Machello's tablets, the plastique, and scant supplies for first aid. Jack scratched at his collarbone under his vest and jacket before he remembered something. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Daniel was back examining the throne, one hand tugging at his jacket, shivering as if he'd forgotten that his uniform had a huge split down his back. Every so often as Daniel turned, checking the throne for a possible way to turn off the barrier, Jack could see the reddish bruise where Ra's knee had landed and a heel shaped imprint where Ra had pressed down on Daniel's shoulder.

Jack's jaw twitched. He'd thought seeing Skaara would make it hard to remember he was the enemy, but the bruises and the minute shivering Daniel was trying to cover made it all too easy for his rage to bubble up and spill over. Without saying a word, he unzipped his vest, removed it, and shrugged off his jacket. Carter only nodded, realizing the colonel's intention and said nothing as Jack zipped his vest back up over his black T-shirt and walked over to Daniel with the jacket hooked on his right index finger.

"Here," he said gruffly. Daniel blinked at the offered jacket. Jack wordlessly pointed to his back, then swung the jacket at the archeologist. To his surprise, Daniel flushed, mumbling his thanks before he shed the torn vest and jacket, pulling off the black shirt and turning around to put the jacket on. Jack's eyes narrowed as he thought he saw a thin red line where the knife had gotten a little too close to the skin. But before he could be sure, the olive green jacket concealed it as Daniel zipped it all the way to the collar.

Daniel turned around mumbling, "Thanks".

Jack merely patted his arm before heading back to his pack, nodding curtly to the others. He tossed a timer to Carter, the knife to Teal'c.

"Looks like the only way out is when Ra comes back to turn off the barrier. So we're going to have to wait for him to come back. We'll rig a charge off the far wall and set it the moment he—" Jack stopped, hearing a wall being parted like before, followed by the echo of steps at the same time Teal'c perked up. He nodded to Carter, who quickly stuck the wad of explosive material behind a statue, hastily stuffing the detonator inside the gooey mess. She hurried back to her position at the chains. Teal'c slipped the knife Jack gave him into his sleeve. Jack gave Daniel a brief nod as the archeologist gingerly slipped his hands through the rings, turning them so the broken seam was facing the floor, and hunched over. Jack heard a curtain part just as he grabbed the chains connecting the braces, cursing in his mind as his hand screamed with agony, holding on so he looked like he was dangling.

A Jaffa with the head of a hawk, strode in slowly from the curtain the team had been led through before, staff weapon dipping down to point to the front, swinging left and right. The guard skidded to a halt, zeroing in on Daniel.

Jack stiffened.

"Dan!" the guard said, hand slapping the back of the helmet, already running towards Daniel as the helmet retracted.

_Dan?_ Jack could tell Daniel was thinking the same thing as they looked at one another. Jack caught sight of determined, yet worried eyes and brown hair when he let go of the chains, dropping to the floor. Jack's own eyes widened as he recognized who it was, heading straight for the unseen barrier.

"Stop! Stop!" Jack waved his arms madly.

John O'Neill caught sight of himself waving at him and dug in his heels, stopping a few inches away from a scorched boot on the floor.

Daniel sagged, relieved. "Oh boy, that would have been bad."

"You think?" Jack asked wryly as he moved closer but still leaned back, imagining his nose getting burned off. He looked at John. "There's some sort of invisible shield in front of you. In those statues, where the teleport ring outline is, there's a panel where Ra stuck his pendant."

John looked at the team warily as they disentangled themselves from the chains, then up and down the length of the space in front of him.

Thumbing towards the burned boot as Teal'c retrieved it with two fingers, Jack made a face. "Trust me...you don't want to try and cross. Not unless you got suntan lotion with an SPF of thirty thousand!"

The captain didn't laugh, only giving the destroyed boot Teal'c was putting on another look before he practically ran to the standing statues. He ran his hand around the bowed head on one of them, finding the quarter sized slot quickly. He pulled the pendant over his head, slipping it into the slot. It fit perfectly.

Carter gazed up. "I think that did it, sir."

"How can you tell?" the colonel grumbled. "What happened to the usual beep, beep sound? Or some flash of light? Have they got no sense of tradition?" Jack held his throbbing hand, eyeing the space up and down. "Major, you still got that lotion bottle?"

Puzzled, Carter gave it to him. Jack gave the bottle a look before he chucked it towards John.

The bottle sailed right through, landing by John's feet.

Jack grunted. "Huh...Guess you're right, Carter." He turned towards John as the captain stepped through effortlessly. "How did you find us without the tablets?"

John nodded back to where he'd come. Found a nice little trail out there." He gestured towards Jack's cut hand. "I figured you would try and leave some sort of clue. I would."

The colonel grunted.

John's eyes stilled over the archeologist. "Wait..." John looked around the room and counted only four. "Where's my brother? Is he in the back?"

The team looked at one another soberly.

"Damn it, where is he? Is he with you or not?"

"No," Daniel said quietly. "We heard Jermak sent him over here, but he must be in the other chambers. Ra said—"

"That there were four battle chambers here. I know. I came out of one. Didn't see him there. Went into the maze and saw a bunch of guards accompanying Ra to another. Followed for a while but didn't see Dan there." John glanced over to the packs the Jaffa had taken from the captured team. "Machello's tablets still there?"

Daniel crouched, searching. He sighed, nodding. "Yes." He pulled them out, stacking them as he had in the briefing. Seconds later, the hologram of the maze appeared. Daniel tapped at the glittering image in the center. The maze rotated until it was standing on its side, the center spot Daniel indicated now upright. "That's where we are now. Judging by how the place is situated, I would say we were beamed in to that chamber there." He pointed without touching the hologram to a corner in the lower right. "There are four exits, and the curtain we came through wound from its bottom all the way around to the center."

John was literally rocking on his heels, impatient to get moving, but he understood the importance of the map. "I came through here," he murmured, leaning over Daniel's shoulder to point to a spot in the lower left.

Teal'c's brow furrowed slightly, the only clear sign the former First Prime was disturbed. "If you did not find Dan O'Neill in the chamber you arrived in, and we did not encounter him, then—"

"That leaves two," Jack calculated. "We'll help you look and set the charges."

Daniel looked over his shoulder to the curtains again and turned around, starting for them. Jack was about to say something, but then he remembered and didn't try to stop him. He went back to studying the space where the barrier had been, working his jaw as he gave it some thought.

The curtains parted, and Daniel walked out, wiping his face with the end of his sleeve.

Teal'c frowned. "Are you well, Daniel Jackson?"

Dejected, Daniel gazed over his shoulder again. "They wouldn't come with me." He wiped something off his cheek. "One of them even...spit at me, called me _re'klya_..."

"They were raised to regard the _re'klya_ as lower creatures, the rejected ones under their god's eyes," John said in a flat voice. "That why it's rare one ever survives long because no one wants to help them."

Daniel opened his hands palms up, pleading. "Jack, we can't leave them here to die."

"I know. I know." Jack shrugged his pack over his shoulder. "Daniel, we can't drag a dozen screaming kids with us. They'll give us away." The colonel darkened though, not liking the idea himself. His hand yanked roughly at the shoulder strap with his left hand, the right curled around his thumb painfully. "We may have to leave them."

"Jack—"

"What do you want me to do?" Jack waved a swollen hand towards the back where the inner chambers were. "Drag them by the hair? Daniel, trust me, I don't like the idea myself, but we have to get this ship destroyed or at least Ra, and they are too...brainwashed to want to help us!"

"Go," Daniel said, abruptly turning back towards the curtains. "I'll stay and try to convince them."

Growling, a shot of anger made Jack forget about his hand for a moment, using it to grab Daniel by the shoulder. "If you think I'm going to let you stay beh—Damn!" He exploded, yanking his hand back. Daniel spun around, mouth shaped into a small O as he looked at the colonel with concern. "God damn—"

"Sir, maybe we should splint that first," Carter suggested quietly, taking the colonel's hand as Jack glowered at Daniel. He hissed as the major felt around the thumb, but it was Daniel he snapped at. "Don't even think about it, Daniel. We're not leaving you behind here to try and play the Pied Piper!"

Daniel stiffened. "So you're suggesting we just leave them here then?"

"Unless you have a better idea of how we can get them to leave with us willingly." Jack glanced around at everyone. "I'm open to suggestions, kids."

Carter and Teal'c looked at each other, wordlessly, both at a loss for options.

"Let me talk to them," John said quietly. He pulled out the pendant again, letting it dangle in front of him. "I'll let them believe I'm a messenger from Ra. Should work." He pointed to the curtains as he headed towards where the children were hiding. "But someone's going to have to beam them down. I'm not leaving until I find Dan."

_If he's still alive,_ Jack thought to himself but swallowed the remark. It was something the captain wouldn't want to hear. Jack knew because it was something he wouldn't want to hear.

"Carter," Jack called out quietly. "You and Teal'c will take the curtain to the left. Daniel and I will go with the captain to the right. You take the kids with you. Find the battle chamber and send them through. And if you find...if you find Dan before we do, give us a call with the radio."

Sam tracked John as he emerged seconds later, children following dutifully behind him, all looking at Daniel with disdain. The archeologist turned away, the sorrow visible on his face.

"Come on," John said quietly to the others, waving his hand towards the children. They passed the SG team, looking back at them curiously as they followed the familiar armor John wore. The captain spoke to them again, syllables of Goa'uld rolling out with ease. He glanced up, meeting Jack's eyes and nodded. "They'll follow Major Carter and Teal'c." John darkened as one of the children asked a question. The inquirer took a step back fearfully from his expression.

"What did she say?" Jack asked as he pulled back his hand, grunting at the thumb splint made of a broken pencil and gauze. The major shrugged. It was the best she could do with what she had.

"Nothing," John said shortly. He took off the strap for his rifle and handed it to Carter. "Should have brought more but didn't want to catch their attention with all this firepower." He pulled out a sidearm and a few clips from within his tunic and gave that one to Jack. He jerked his head towards one of the curtains close to the center, directly behind the crossed statues. "Major Carter, you guys can take them through here. It should lead you to the northeastern chamber. I'm going ahead towards the west." He didn't wait, readjusting his grip on his staff weapon and ducked into the curtain close to the left.

"Wait!" Jack called out, gritting his teeth when the captain either didn't hear him or just didn't bother to answer. "God damn reckless—" He stopped. It was something he would say to Daniel. He gulped back the rest of his griping and nodded to Carter and Teal'c, who were carefully herding the children through the gestured curtain. The Jaffa paused momentarily to press his knife in Daniel's hands, the surprised scholar unable to give him a response before Teal'c headed back to where the young slaves were. As Carter gave Jack an all clear sign before slipping through, Jack turned to Daniel, the scholar grabbing his pack, scanning around the room with a frown.

"Daniel, what did that kid say to him?"

The archeologist looked sadly at the curtain John had ducked into. "They...they asked if he was here to attend the _re'klya'_s execution."

Jack muttered a curse.

Daniel hurried his steps. "We'd better not leave John alone, Jack."

The colonel nodded, his chest constricting as he thought of what it would feel like to lose another family member. He gripped the pistol with his good hand, making a mental note to keep a close eye on the gun. Because if what he suspected of John was true, he was going to be fighting the captain for the gun once they found Dan O'Neill.

"Let's go," Jack murmured, hand briefly on Daniel's back before they ran out the same corridor John had gone through, the captain's footsteps a good distance away.

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When Hansen first came to, she sat up with a start and checked for her men. Then she realized there was a gaping hole spanning from her floor all the way to four levels above.

The Jaffa were nowhere in sight.

She didn't waste any time. She hurried her men, slapping a few bandages on what hurt on some, ignoring her own throbbing shoulder and the suspicious wetness she could feel sticking her shirt to her skin, and ordered the precarious climb through the hole the plastique had punched through. They waded carefully through the mess, some gawking at the hole that reached to the next lower level as well. Hansen could have sworn she saw a few pairs of armored limbs sticking out down below, a few red gem eyes fading off into darkness. But she pushed the musings aside and started sending people up one by one, ropes trailing behind them for the next person.

As they climbed, she could hear her father's radio going off the hook, men's names she caught with a brief smile, were called out as they asked if everyone was okay, people above their levels, waiting for the word to attack as well. She gave her own grunt, adding to the list of those still alive and kicking, ready to do battle and give an eviction notice to the Goa'uld. But as she climbed, she thought of her men still waiting above in the embarkation room, remembering them saying the enemy was close by.

"Siler!" she hissed, pausing midway, one boot hooked over a pipe wedged between the collapsed floors, one hand grasping what remained of the ceiling of a library, a storage room, she didn't know. "See if you can get them back on the radio."

"Blue team, is anyone there?"

The sergeant's voice was rough, barely audible, and Sammy had to look down first to be sure it was caution not an injury lowering the engineer's voice. Her eyes drifted to her father's, who nodded, knowing what she was thinking. He mouthed, "He's okay," and bobbed his chin up and down towards her to keep moving.

It occurred to her General Hammond was still down below, the older man refusing to remain behind, taking the painstaking time to climb after them, and she was tempted to slow down. Her standing orders, no matter what, were to ensure the adjunct world leaders were safe. While the other nations had theirs safely tucked away somewhere, hers were still hanging on a coarse rope, heading towards the path of a Goa'uld tornado.

A muffled explosion shook the edge of plaster she was stepping on, and she nearly fell off, hearing grunts below her as they braced for the impact. Hand flailing, she finally found a better foothold and stood there, panting. She could see the hallway where they'd started their descent through the shaft up ahead, a yawning hole where the floor used to be. She looked down, making sure she didn't knock off any debris that would rain down on her men and caught the worried look on her father's face. At her nod though, Jacob relaxed.

"Almost there," she said in a hushed voice. She heard a few murmurs of relief. Her concerns shoved into the back of her mind, Sammy kept climbing, coaxing her tired body. It was a few more inches, just a few more. Then when she reached solid ground, she'd lie to her body again and tell it it was almost over. The sounds of war above, the lack of response from their radio made her drained muscles tense once more with anxiety, her feet digging deeper to find support to continue the ascent.

When she reached the top, she peered carefully at their destination. Cautiously, she climbed and looked around before nodding down towards her team. One by one, they came up.

"Looks good. We'd better head for the embar—"

"Look out!"

Hansen turned around just in time to see a flash of energy shrieking towards her. She felt something hot branding her arm, her shoulder convulsing with renewed agony in response, and she fell back, over the edge, towards the drop.

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"Anything?"

Sam shook her head, stopping as she remembered the colonel's voice was coming through her earpiece. She gave the connecting wire a tug as the signal faded a bit, either due to damage from their scuffle with the Jaffa or simply the signal's inability to go through the walls of the battleship. Either way, she couldn't make out her CO's question until he repeated it again.

"No, sir," she whispered, her spine to one of the walls as she saw a straight backed figure walking in the corridor parallel to hers Only the many corners sticking out from the maze prevented him from discovering them. "We're sort of...uh...stuck here."

"Stuck?" Jack asked, his voice lower at the tone of urgency she hissed into her mike.

"Ra's back there, heading for the same chamber. He must have found nothing and started searching the mazes and the other chambers. We can't move without him seeing."

"Shit."

Sam silently agreed. She glanced over her shoulder, Teal'c's and her forms blocking the children from seeing. The little servants were crouched at Teal'c's request, clearly puzzled about why they had to slink around.

"Sir, should we double back and head over to where you are?"

"Negative. Stay where you are. You're going to get lost instead and I'd rather-"

"Neteru i Ra!" a high tenor voice cried out as one of the older youths peered over Teal'c's shoulder and saw their god. He darted out, crying to their lord.

"Carter! What the hell was that?"

A staff blast zipped by and Teal'c pulled the child down as it soared over them and landed in a corner behind her.

Sam grabbed one of the smaller girls before she could bolt, her rifle out as she barked into her radio.

"Sir, we've been spotted!"

Another blast, right behind her, sent her crashing to the floor. Sam felt Teal'c's massive grip on her collar, setting her upright. She didn't have time to give thanks as she spun around and just fired. The closest Jaffa jerked before falling.

One of the children screamed. Some fled from Teal'c while others were too scared to do anything more than cower behind his knees.

Sam dragged two behind her, crouching down at a corner. She then realized the colonel had been barking into the radio the whole time.

"Carter! What's your location? We're heading over right now!"

"Sir! There're too many—"

Daniel's voice broke through. "Sam! How many explosives do you have? Put one there, and block your escape!"

Sam broke out into a grim smile. She whistled to Teal'c, sending the rifle skidding across to him. The Jaffa didn't hesitate, firing rapidly at the approaching guards as Carter set a gray wad of plastique at the corner where the floor met the wall. Sticking in a detonator, she hurriedly turned the timer on, the red digital numbers clicking down rapidly.

"Got it!" she announced, ducking as a shot got too close. "Teal'c, where are the rest of them?" she called out, alarmed when she realized there were only five left clinging to them.

Teal'c nodded grimly at a few slumped bodies a few feet ahead of them. "They escaped around our corner and went towards them. Ra's guards did not stop firing."

She clenched her fist. "Come on," she grated out, grabbing two thin hands. "It's going to blow."

Her friend didn't ask how much time was left. He gave off a few more shots to make the Jaffa guards pause, hauled up two of the oldest slaves, and took off after Carter.

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"We've got to help Sam," Daniel insisted, glancing back at John, the captain not stopping but spurring on. The man had paused when he'd first heard the call, but after Carter radioed they were leaving, the timer set, he went back to his search with a determined glint in his gaze.

The colonel checked his gun, noting the few clips John had given them and gritted his teeth. "Come on." He took off, looking for a way to cut across to the other chamber.

An explosion from the distance threw them off their feet. Jack felt Daniel collide with him, sending them toppling to the floor.

"Carter!" Jack barked into the radio, the urgency making him forget to lower his voice. By the way the ship was coming to life with the sounds of guards there was no need. The ship was alerted to their escape.

Daniel was sitting up, frantically piecing the tablets together again to activate the map. "There!" he cried out, pointing to a corridor that was open in front of them, mirroring the projection from the hologram. "Take that and...I think turn to your first left. That should get us close to where Sam was heading."

"Keep close," the colonel said tightly as he followed the path Daniel indicated, crouching low as he traced the wall's direction, making the left Daniel had mentioned. He could sense Daniel behind him, a hand hesitantly on Jack's jacket hem. The explosion had knocked loose some of the stones dotting the maze with their eerie green light, sending shadows dancing as they went by. It was too dark, yet Jack didn't dare find his flashlight and take it out. Despite being unable to see much of the maze, he'd choose the cloak of darkness rather than broadcast their location.

When Daniel bumped into him for the tenth time as Jack kept stopping to listen for guards, he extended his splinted hand, dragging the archeologist's hand to a belt loop on his hip, two fingers staying on Daniel's. He tapped it once, then moved another step, tapping the hand twice before he stopped. Jack looked over his shoulder and saw Daniel nod, understanding the signals.

The two men stayed like that, Daniel's finger hooked around Jack's belt loop, relying on the colonel's fingers to tap out whether to keep moving or stop before they reached the end of the corridor. A cloak of thick red velvet blocked the light from the chamber it opened into.

"Carter, we're at the northwestern chamber," Jack hissed into the radio.

No response.

"Maybe her radio is down," whispered Daniel, leaning closer to Jack's ear. The colonel turned, catching the worry widening in Daniel's eyes, and he nodded, pretending to agree. The archeologist let go of the belt loop and fumbled until he found the blade Teal'c had given him. The knife had looked large before, a good six inches of stainless steel, but now, in Daniel's hands, it looked woefully small. Compared to what the bad guys had, it might as well be a butter knife.

Jack ignored the nagging feeling that maybe he should have Daniel stay here. It wouldn't do any good, and the last time he left Daniel by himself in a corridor, his inner voice reproachfully pointed out, it'd cost Daniel his life, even if it was only temporarily. So Jack just motioned to Daniel, his gun waving towards the curtain, then ducked his head through, checking the chamber, his gun entering first. It was similar to the one they'd arrived in. And if it wasn't for the fact that the platforms he saw were on the other side now, and the color of the circle on the floor a different embossing, Jack would have thought they'd returned to where they'd started.

He silently pointed to the statues, wordlessly telling Daniel to check those and the consoles. Daniel nodded, gripping the blade as he followed Jack out.

"Search the area, see if you can make heads or tails out of that thing," Jack hissed as he made his way along the curtained walls, his hand pushing back the material to insure no one was behind them. He reached the last one as he continued, "I'll go and see where Carter—"

It was like slow motion. Daniel suddenly saw Jack's legs swing up, almost comically if it wasn't for the fact Jack flew across the room in front of Daniel, crashing into the consoles he'd told him to examine before tumbling over to fall on the other side.

"Jack!" Daniel started for him before he heard a small chiming sound, followed by the last thing he wanted to hear.

"Beloved."

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"Commander!"

"Sammy!"

She felt the ground disappear under her feet, the sensation rivaling the burn that shocked her to her bones. Hansen gritted her teeth as she felt her back arch, gravity pulling her in and reached out with both arms.

And felt a hand grab hers.

Her descent halted with an abrupt jerk that tugged at her bad arm, which turned out to also be her bad shoulder, and she exploded in a curse before she focused and saw her father grimly holding onto her.

"Hang on..." Jacob gritted. He winced as pebbles bounced down and struck his face. Already, a furious battle raged above them as the soldiers who had completed the climb were forced to duck behind debris surrounding the hole.

Sammy felt her hand slip a little from his grasp. "Let go," she rasped. "I'm pulling you with me."

"Like hell I will!"

"Hold on!" Down below, still climbing, General Hammond was hurrying to help them. "I'll be there in a few seconds."

Hansen knew there was no way he could make it.

Jacob's eyes suddenly flashed, Selmac surfacing to add its strength. "Jacob tells me to inform you, George, that unless you have lost considerable weight, he will not be able to hold both of you should you fall."

The general stared up ahead, holding tightly to a rope, clearly frustrated, the soldiers above shouting for their adjunct leader to keep climbing.

"Go, sir!" Hansen shouted above the noisy din of staff weapons and gunfire. "Go!"

Jacob, or should it be Selmac now, tugged at her hand, the other clutched tightly to another rope. She could hear Siler above her, shouting for them to hold on, the rope quivering like a plucked bow.

"Selmac..." Hansen forced the Tok'ra name out. She fought to find another foothold, but the stone she stepped on fell, and she jerked down another inch. "Let go...You can't hold me."

"If I release..." Selmac hissed, the dual voices both thin and sharp with the effort. "Then I will have not kept...my promise to your father..."

Sammy stared at the Tok'ra. "What?"

"Back in Detroit..." Selmac gasped, his face turning red as he pulled. "Promised...your father to keep him...alive...and help...him...protect..." Another pull and Sammy found herself clutching the rope once more, Selmac's hand clasped over hers tightly. The Tok'ra breathed, the burden gone. He smiled at her before continuing the climb.

"I promised him to help protect his daughter. I will not revoke this promise." With that, Selmac vanished from Jacob's eyes, returning her father to the surface. The former general looked embarrassed. He turned towards the opening above him.

"Selmac, you've got a big mouth," he grumbled, not meeting Sammy's eyes as he hurried up the rope.

Hansen stared at her father's back before she shook her head and started after him.

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John stumbled through the red curtain, checking the last chamber shown on the map. He didn't feel his legs burn with the effort or hear the others hissing for him to wait up. As he ran for one room, dismissing the endless walls of the maze as unimportant, all he could focus on was finding his brother. And when he finally arrived, all he saw was the crumpled body laid on the floor, one hand extended.

Dan.

The room tilted under his feet, and his staff weapon fell from nerveless fingers. John stood there, willing the image to be a mirage, a delusion from his guilt-ridden mind, but it didn't go away.

"Oh God," he croaked, lurching, tripping as he headed towards his younger brother. His boots crunched on something, and he automatically looked down, seeing the sparkles of shattered metal under his boot.

The _re'klya._

"Dan," he whispered, seeing the other one glittering a few inches away from his brother's face. "Danny!" John dropped to his knees, heedless of the red splotches around him and gathered his brother into his arms. He stared down in dismay at the blood streaming down his nose, down his face where Jermak had ripped the devices out of him. "God, no..." John cradled his brother against his chest, resting Dan's head within the crook of his elbow. Dan felt so light, as if there was nothing there, empty, drained. He shakily brushed limp locks of hair and felt the soft shuddering breath coming out through Dan's partly opened mouth. "Dan...Dan..."

Opening his eyes, Dan gazed back at him, his eyes a clear blue, as vivid as the day John first saw them on a little boy in a far away park.

Dan smiled.

John tried to return the smile, but he was shaking too hard to do so. He could feel the body shivering, trembling as it fought to breathe, to pump blood through a weakening heart.

No one ever survived the _re'klya_ being taken out. Not after three years.

"You're...you're going to be okay..." John stuttered. He managed to force his mouth to curve upward. He tenderly brushed back more hair from Dan's face, running his thumb under Dan's nose, wiping the blood away. "W-we're winning. And Ferretti and Kawalsky are heading over to the Asgards for help to make sure he doesn't come back...We'll go back to their reality...h-have Doctor Fraiser fix you up real g-good and—"

"...G-glad..." Dan swallowed, struggling to speak. "G-glad...it's y-you...w-as-s...af-f-raid it m-might be..." Dan's voice was barely a whisper, sounding as if his syllables were dragged out with each waning breath. "W-wanted it...to b-be you..." His brother gasped, barely louder than the breathing his lungs tried to make, rattling like a small rock shaking inside a can. Dan's hands flailed, and John caught one tightly in his right hand.

"No. It'll be fine. Everything's going to be okay," John said desperately. "I saw Daniel and the others. They're going to set the charges to destroy this ship. They're coming here. They have their doctors, their hospitals. I can take you back there. No. We can go now-" He started to rise, Dan tucked inside his arms.

Dan's fingers within his hand curled, scratching the inside of his palm, telling him to stop. John didn't have the strength to carry him anyway. He dropped to the floor almost immediately the moment he tried.

"It's ok-kaay...ex...expected thisss..." Dan sighed softly, his head rolled to the side, against John's bent elbow. He breathed out softly. "I'm...o...ok-kay with thhhiss..."

"I'm not!"

Dan turned his head up to John.

The captain stared at him, eyes huge, bright, desperate as he pleaded. "It's just a little longer, Dan. You just have to hang on a bit more. We'll get you some neuar to help you until their doctors can heal you. You've just got to stay and fight."

"Hh—"

"I know it hurts. God, I'm so sorry that it does, but please. Please. Just stay a little longer. We've almost won. We're almost there. You can't go now!" John's voice rose, reverberating throughout the room. He pulled Dan closer, sitting him up, shaking him gently. "Please. You promised me..."

"'or as l-l…ong ass I c-can..."

"It's not enough!"

Dan's tears soaked through John's uniform. "D-don't do this...J'hn...don't..."

"I won't let you go. I won't!" John rocked his brother in his arms, willing his own strength over to Dan, screaming silently at his heart to beat for both of them, eyes clenched shut as he tried to absorb Dan's pain in exchange. "I won't allow this! No!"

"P-promise...you...be...o'ay..."

"No!" John shook his head vehemently, his arms tighter as he felt the body shake, the legs feebly kicking in agony. "No! No, I won't be okay! You have to stay if you want me to keep that promise!"

"'ohn...no..."

"No. I'll be destroyed! I'll have nothing left! You can't go. If you want me to be okay, you can't leave, damn it! I won't keep that promise! I won't!" John looked back down at Dan. "I won't do—" He stopped.

Dan stared off at a point past where they sat, eyes open, dull and unseeing. He had stopped shaking, head rolling back to hit John in the chest.

"Danny?" John whispered. He stilled, staring down at his brother. "Dan?" He reached out his right hand and waved it in front of Dan's eyes.

He didn't blink.

No. John closed his eyes briefly. No. Dan had just lost his sight again. That was all. He brought down his right hand and brushed it across Dan's forehead.

At the touch, the head lolled to the side, away from John, eyes still open, vacant.

And John knew.

"No..." he whispered, staring at Dan. "You promised..."

This wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening.

They were the good guys. They were supposed to win. They were supposed to come out of this all okay.

Not like this.

John dropped his head against Dan's chest, rocking his brother.


	50. Chapter 49

**CHAPTER FORTY NINE**

"Beloved."

Daniel froze, the blade automatically up as he saw the petite Goa'uld queen slip out from behind the last curtain Jack had been checking. Her eyes shone with pleasure as she saw him.

"We feared the worst when Jermak showed us what he had done to you," she breathed, coming closer, her jewelry clinking loudly with her faster pace.

"Don't," Daniel warned.

Hathor stopped, a look of hurt and confusion over her face. Daniel paused in surprise.

"Why do you scorn us, Chosen? We have come, escaped our dying ship, to rescue you."

"Rescue?" He wanted to laugh. He backed away from her, trying to get around the consoles to check on Jack. Daniel took another step back until his hip struck the console. Nowhere to go.

Hathor's eyes gleamed with inner white fire, her hand extended towards him. "Come with us, Chosen."

"Don't." Daniel thought it was odd she wasn't using it again, but he wasn't complaining. He let both hands curl around the knife handle tightly.

"Why do you refuse us?" she suddenly shrieked, her hands flung up.

Daniel flinched, hands up as if he could shield himself from the blast. Suddenly, he heard a soft gasp, the tinkle of glass and hands on his face.

"Beloved," she whispered. "No...No...Do not fear us. We would not harm you."

Stilled, shocked, Daniel couldn't back away, his spine pressed against the strange stations, the knife disregarded by Hathor with a quick slap on his wrist sending it clattering to the floor. She braced his face between her hands and smiled demurely.

"We would never harm you...Chosen." She leaned closer, her lips parted.

And Daniel shoved her away with a gasp, chest heaving.

The queen shrieked in fury, her hand whipping across, catching him on the chin. The force spun Daniel around, slamming him face down on the consoles. Dazed, he caught a glimpse of blinking lights, of a meter indicating shields, before he saw Frasier's face, Hathor's smirk reflecting off the smooth rock.

"Why do you resist? After all we have done for you?" Her hands were on his back. Daniel shrugged them away, stumbling, lightheaded until he tripped over Jack's legs and fell. Dismayed, he saw a trickle of blood coming from somewhere along Jack's hairline.

"You."

Hathor's hiss made him look up, and he saw her glaring at Jack with spite. He shuffled until he was blocking the colonel's prone figure. His hands secretly fumbled around, trying to look for the gun Jack had had. Nothing.

"Constantly you prevent us from taking him," she seethed, not realizing what Daniel was doing.

Daniel stared at her from his position on the floor. The queen's face was clear to him; her voice still held the possessive tone he'd heard when he was blind on Jermak's ship. But he'd never seen her face like this, so obsessed, driven.

For the first time in a long time, a sliver of cold fear gripped Daniel's chest. He suddenly felt eight years old again, down on the floor with his cheek stinging from Lily's blow.

This wasn't Janet Frasier.

It also wasn't Hathor.

Daniel didn't know who she was.

Something had gone wrong. When she moved to her next host, something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. Daniel could see it in the mad gleam in her eyes, the anger she'd displayed gone as fast as it came. She seemed to have forgotten about her ship in space, forgotten she was on Ra's ship, focusing only on him.

Hungry eyes turned back to him. "Step aside, Beloved. We will rid us of this thorn. He will not stop us ever again."

It was like his struggles went over her head, his protests never heard. All she saw was him, here in front of her. Were she a beast, she would have licked her lips like a starving predator.

Daniel couldn't stop himself. His hand bumped into Jack's limp arm, giving it a small shake. He'd never felt more alone than with her now.

Hathor was not pleased. She grabbed him by the collar and dragged him a few inches away from Jack. Daniel kept forgetting this wasn't the doctor he knew, the petite frame a disguise for enhanced strength.

"Why do you insist on denying us? Had you not denied us before, we wouldn't have..." She trailed off, one hand stroking the sides of his temple. Her eyes darkened and looked past him, back to Jack. "He comes to take you from us. This can not be."

Jermak was right. She had gone mad. Daniel could see her hatred flare towards Jack for the mere reason that he was with Daniel. The archeologist looked over to the curtains, relieved Sam and Teal'c weren't here. God only knew what she would do to them.

Hathor was still muttering, scowling at Jack. Daniel furiously thought of what he could do to get her away. The Goa'uld was already rising, her hand with the ribbon device aiming for the colonel, determined to get rid of the obstacle she was so sure was there in Jack.

"My queen!" Daniel blurted.

The woman stilled, turning back to Daniel.

God, his stomach churned just thinking it, but Daniel smiled and extended his hand towards her. "I...I can not rise. Please..." He swallowed. "Help me."

Her mouth curved into a satisfied smile, eyes glowing soft white towards him. Daniel had to stop from cringing as she swept her hands across his shoulders, pulling him up with surprising strength. Daniel valiantly gave her a smile, murmured thanks and tried discreetly to move away, steer her away from Jack. The queen was more than willing to do so, her hand greedily running up and down Daniel's arm. The archeologist swallowed.

"My queen, I—"

Hathor surged at him, pushing him down on the console and devoured his mouth.

Daniel stiffened, protests swallowed by her kiss. He grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to push her away. But she was relentless, the ribbon device on her hand running against his jaw. Daniel didn't dare strike out. He'd never be able to escape the device's power in time.

"Mine," she hissed, pulling apart enough to make her claim. Hathor slid him down to the floor, his back banging painfully on the tiles. She straddled him, her hands pressing him down to the ground, greedily sliding herself onto him. His muffled "No!" went ignored as her hands roamed freely like on Jermak's ship when he was captured.

"This is how you show your devotion to me?"

Daniel stilled as Ra's unamused voice floated towards them. He turned his head, but before he could see where Ra was, he felt the burn of a ribbon device planted directed on top of his head.

"Shen tak Ra!" Hathor stepped back, baring teeth. "He is ours! You can not have him!"

Daniel couldn't speak. The ribbon device Ra had clamped firmly on his head vibrated, the shocks humming down his body. He garbled out a denial, forcing himself to turn his eyes towards Hathor. He could see her face, angry, but at Ra. _Help me_, he begged, not knowing if it was Hathor, Frasier or just God he was asking for aid.

"Lord Jermak was correct. You have gone mad," Ra said in smooth Goa'uld. He ignored her, grinning down evilly at Daniel. "Shiu heo _re'klya_."

Daniel was able to think that was what Ra said before he felt the device increase its tremors, something hot flowing down his lips. Blood, he realized as his ears thundered with the sounds of screaming. He thought he was screaming and tried to stop himself, hands painstakingly going up to Ra's wrist, unable to pull free. His breathing quickened, and Daniel's hands dropped. Somehow, he was able to hear the high pitched sound of delicate metal falling to the ground and rolling away.

His bracelet.

The circlet had fallen.

"Shen tak Ra!"

Daniel felt the hand on his skull tighten, and he gasped, the warm liquid flowing from his nose into his mouth.

Then, Ra released him.

Daniel couldn't stop himself from falling to the side, gasping like a fish out of water. He wanted to curl up, but he forced himself to look up. And when he did, he sat up in shock.

His blade was buried to the hilt in Ra's ribs. The Goa'uld god looked stunned, at Hathor, who still held the grip of the handle, hissing as she challenged Ra. The two Goa'ulds' eyes flashed and Ra, with a roar, slammed down his gloved hand onto her head. The queen screeched, trying to retaliate, but she was too slow. Her knees folded, and she fell to the ground, eyes huge as she was locked in Ra's deadly grip.

"You dare?" he breathed, eyes glowing so bright, they seemed to take over his tanned face. "YOU DARE?"

The queen snarled curses, her hand lashing out to grab the hilt.

And twisted.

Ra drew back his head and howled. The gem on his hand glowed to a bright solid red.

Daniel crawled, he couldn't stand, around the station, fumbling until he could finally discern from the three Jacks he saw, that the one to the right was real.

"Wha?" Jack mumbled, wincing. When he heard Ra's howl, Hathor's angry scream, he sat up, groaning as his hand shot up to his head. He blinked and focused on a white faced Daniel, a minute trickle of blood running down his nose and right ear, looking very anxious despite the fact Jack had come to.

"We have to go," the archeologist whispered. He blinked bloodshot eyes, looking around the floor. He fumbled for his pack, his whole body quivering for some reason as he fought to grab it, his hands barely holding onto the straps. He saw Jack's concerned expression and weakly nodded towards the back, head ducking as he fought to catch his breath.

Jack craned to look over the console, his eyes widening, his dizziness gone when he saw Hathor and Ra in a death grip with each other. Yeah, going now would be very good.

Grabbing the gun Jack felt digging into his back, he gave one more look at the pair before he gripped Daniel by the wrist with his good hand, his still injured one loosely hooked around the gun. He spun his head back sharply when he realized no thin line of bracelet rubbed against his palms.

Daniel swayed to his feet, would only nod towards the floor. Jack saw the circlet near him. He grabbed it and stuck it in one pocket, not taking the time to replace it on Daniel's wrist.

"Sho cha! Jaffa!"

Jack didn't know what was Ra saying, but he caught the word Jaffa and knew staying would not be good.

Saying nothing, Jack half dragged Daniel, stumbling himself as he went for a curtain, any curtain, so long as it was away from there. He could hear Hathor screaming after them, a scuffle, but Jack didn't wait to see if they were following. He ran with Daniel in tow, legs gaining strength until finally, Carter's voice broke through to him.

_"Colonel? Colonel? Can you hear me?"_

"Carter?" Jack skidded to a halt, releasing Daniel. The archeologist leaned against the wall, sliding down to the floor heaving, floundering with the tablets again with shaky hands. Jack gave his friend a worried look before tapping his mike on, which by some miracle, had survived his abrupt flight thanks to Hathor Air.

_"Sir! We couldn't reach you! The plastique took out half the maze and most of Ra's guards who were in the maze after us. We're going to go around back where we were and—"_

"Head for the northwestern chamber. Use the second to last curtain. Daniel and I are going there. Keep heading straight!" Jack saw Daniel giving a nod, pointing to a part of the hologram map. "Go two rights and then straight."

_"Sir?"_

"My...twin and his brother should be there! We have to get him...them, I mean. Meet us there! We'll get the teleport rings and set the charges before we go!"

Carter shouted an affirmative and signed off. But Jack didn't wait for her confirmation. He kept feeling like Ra and Hathor were breathing down their necks. He whistled sharply to Daniel, snagging some of the plastique and slapping it on the wall. He stuck the detonators, set the clock for ten and practically thrust the pack into Daniel's arms, yanking out his clip to count the bullets before cursing. He slammed the clip back into his sidearm, grabbed Daniel by the scruff of his collar, and hauled his teammate and his backpack forward.

Daniel didn't protest Jack's rough handling. He just wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, ignored Jack's look of silent inquiry, and ran.

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Siler's breath came out in a whoosh when he saw the two generals and the commander vault behind a line of debris soon after they reached the top, guns already out and firing. He frowned though when he saw the almost transparent pallor on the commander's face, but a shot that came too close made him jerk his head back. As he aimed for the origin of the shot, his concern was forgotten.

"Sergeant!" Hansen's voice demanded his attention, and he looked up again. "Have you reached Blue team?"

"No!" he hollered back, dropping to the ground as another shot sailed inches from his ears. He whipped his head back though when he heard a cry as it landed elsewhere. He swore under his breath as he saw one of their men drag the wounded away into a room in the back, but there was no time to check if he was dead or alive. "But our signal looks clear! I don't understand—"

"I'm out!" Lee shouted. "I need a clip!"

A black rectangular object sailed over Siler's head to his left.

A few more shots and another shouted. "I'm out!"

Siler sat back up and fired his rifle with one hand, the other fumbling around his jacket. "Who has another clip?"

"I need another clip here!"

"I'm out, too!"

Siler darted a look over to his commander, the woman gritting her teeth, probably in anger. This wasn't good at all. Blue team was either gone or captured or worse—just plain dead. And they were pinned down in front of a gaping hole where the elevator shafts once were with no way of getting past it or heading for the Stargate without passing the barrage of Jaffa stubbornly standing a few dozen meters away.

Click.

_Well, shit_, he thought as the last cartridge jammed in the firing chamber. "Cheap military budget—" he muttered before he felt a hand slam his head down, avoiding the rapid thunder of staff weapons piercing holes in his hideout.

"Commander! I'm out as well!" Siler shouted, daring to look up a bit, but the commander didn't reply. He saw General Carter look down though, shouting something before a soft roar rumbled throughout the hallway.

And the Jaffa fell silent.

Siler looked across, catching Hammond's eye and shrugged. He raised his head, peering over his barrier. The guards were silent.

"Where'd they go?" one of the soldiers whispered, sticking his head up until someone hissed, yanking the kid back down.

"Beats the hell out of me."

And suddenly—

_Boom._

Siler wondered how people figured out the way to spell the sounds stuff makes. Did they sit down and listen to it over and over again? Because what some might describe some day in the history books as a boom felt and sounded more like a hundred lions roaring simultaneously, amplified with some really big speakers and subwoofer. Loud enough to make the room shake, and loud enough to make the ceiling crumble.

Hell...it was just plain loud.

Clawing the barrier he was hiding behind, Siler looked up again and saw figures walking towards their location in the smoke and dust rising from the soundwave. Everyone tensed, empty rifles up in hopes they could fool the enemy that they were still armed to the teeth. But Siler could make out shorter figures, figures not donned with armor, but with fabric, cloth, and walking towards them without staff weapons in their hands.

"General Hammond!"

Hammond furrowed his brow, calling out, "Who wants to know?"

"Major Ferretti of the SGC."

Siler rose to his feet, everyone else beside him doing the same. As the group got closer, the survivors of the Red team and Hammond's people from the submarine all lowered their guns.

Major Ferretti stood there, face colored with soot, his helmet gone, uniform the worse for wear. But he saluted them sharply.

"Got sick and tired of being cooped up in the embarkation room, sir. We thought we would join the festivities, toss the last of our grenades into the party mix." Ferretti eyed the gap in the floor. "Huh...although I can see you guys had the more fun part."

Hammond reshouldered his rifle, smiling. "Very glad you could make it, son. Where're General Maybourne and Jolinar?"

A strange look crossed Ferretti's face. "Maybourne went through the Stargate with Captain Kawalsky and myself...uh...I mean my twin. Miss Jolinar, however..."

The general's smile faded. "What's wrong?"

The major looked regretful as he glanced back at his men. "It's pretty bad, sir. It was the reason why we decided not to wait around any more. She..." He took a deep breath, straightening.

"She's dying, sir. I'm sorry."

Hammond went around the edge of the crumbled floor. "Where is she? Let me see her. Everyone, let's move."

"Wait." Jacob's strained voice stopped George. Jacob looked up finally, from behind a piling. "I'm...I'm going to need some help here."

Alarmed, Hammond hurried back, Ferretti behind him practically leaping ahead. As they neared the piling, Hammond closed his eyes briefly.

Hansen.

The commander had her eyes shut tight, lines of pain making her scar stretch past her cheek into her hairline. Jacob pressed a rag into her shoulder, the rivulets of blood seeping out telling everyone it was useless.

"Damn it, Commander," Hammond swore as he dropped to his knees to check. He sat back on his heels with dismay as he felt the heated flesh, the sharp point of shrapnel.

"Must have been...when they blew the floors...sir..." she hissed. "Didn't...feel this bad before though...thought it would be fine until this was over..." She sucked in her breath as one of the younger soldiers in Ferretti's group went over and peeled back her shirt.

"She must have hit an artery when she moved, sir," the soldier said, gulping. "If she hadn't moved—"

Jacob gritted his teeth. "Goddamn stubborn—"

"We can't sit here." Pushing her father's hand away, Hansen grabbed Siler's wrist, using it to haul herself up to her feet. She swayed, dropping back down again. The group of worried soldiers surged forward, hovering anxiously.

"Damn it! Everyone can't just stand here!" she snapped, her good hand curled around her own wound, the blood oozing out between her fingers. "We have to go and get Ra!"

"Captain O'Neill is already up there, Commander," Ferretti said quietly. "Let's just get you and Miss Jolinar somewhere and see what we can do."

Hansen got up to her feet again, trying not to lean on Jacob as they maneuvered around the hole. "I don't need dozens of nursemaids. Leave me and Jolinar somewhere and take care of business."

"Sure, kiddo," Jacob murmured. "Let us check and make sure this is okay first."

"I said I was fine," she grated out. She shook her hand free from her father.

Jacob gave everyone a warning look, putting his hands up placating. "Okay. You're fine. Then walk."

"Thank you," she grumbled, taking a few steps by herself. Then she stopped.

Jacob stood behind her, his arms crossed, mentally counting. _Three...two...one._

The former general caught her just in time as Hansen fell back without another word.

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Hot and cold raked her mind like talons, matching the sharp pain of the glove as Ra pressed down.

She screamed.

And thought she heard two voices.

"Jaffa! Sho chak Jaffa!" He howled for his guards, but all she heard were two.

She felt her hand slip off the knife she was holding onto.

He'd left her.

Her Beloved.

Why?

He was hers. Why did he leave and not help her?

"Take her! Seal her and send her back! I will deal with her later!"

Incensed, Ra's glove quivered with increased energy, rising with his anger. She could feel herself being pulled apart, a voice from the beginning, a voice she squelched the moment she'd conquered this body returned screaming in pain with a renewed strength that added to Ra's beam, forcing her out.

No.

She wouldn't go.

She couldn't.

She must take back what was hers.

Her last thought before darkness snatched her away, either in death or worse, sealed away, was how she must return to regain what was hers.

_Beloved..._

And then there was nothingness.

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Jack lost sight of Daniel as they ran down the hallways. He wanted to shout to Daniel to wait, to hold up, but when he arrived at the room, everything...stopped.

Someone was sitting in the chamber, rocking back and forth at the center. Someone, who didn't notice Daniel coming in.

"God," Jack rubbed his hand across his mouth, staring at his twin who was staring at God knew what, Dan's blank eyes seeing nothing from the false safety of encircled arms.

Charlie.

He remembered sitting in the hospital after they'd pronounced his boy, his precious, perfect boy was beyond saving. Dead. Gone.

He tasted the antiseptic used in the hospital room, tasted it lingering in his mouth, and he'd dully thought the end of the world surely must taste like this.

"Captain O'Neill?" Daniel whispered, cautiously approaching John. The captain was sitting there, going back and forth, holding Dan in his arms. He found himself pinned under John's dull eyes.

"Captain?" Daniel tried again. He came closer, dropping down on one knee. He swallowed, feeling a sick stirring in his stomach as he found himself staring back at himself in John's arms.

Daniel swallowed, his throat closing at the sight, the chills running up and down his body returning. He glanced back at John, who was still looking at him. "John?" he tried again.

Dead eyes stared at Daniel, bobbing up and down as John rocked the body protectively. Daniel shuddered inside; the sensation of being watched was overwhelming.

John painfully moved his head, looking down at Dan; a strangled sound rumbled from deep inside his throat. The captain shakily brushed the tears still clinging to the lax face, fingers avoiding the open eyes.

"Damn." The whisper came from behind.

Daniel sensed Jack behind him. He knew Sam and Teal'c couldn't be too far behind. He could hear the timer ticking away. They had less than ten minutes.

It was now or never.

"Captain O'Neill," Daniel said softly. "Let him go."

John kept on rocking Dan.

"Please. He wouldn't want you to be like this."

Shaking his head, a choked garble in protest, John tightened his hold.

Daniel shivered. The eyes were pinning him down. Daniel glanced up to John's shocked face and knew the eyes were doing the same to him. He reached out a hand to Dan, swallowing as he brushed his fingertips over the eyelids. With a gentle glide downwards, he closed them. The image shattered; Dan O'Neill now looked like he was sleeping. Daniel started to pull away.

John's hand whipped up and snatched Daniel's wrist before he could react. Daniel gasped as the grip tightened, circling around his wrist, around the faint red outline on his wrist.

"Daniel!" Jack shouted. He reached John, grabbing at the hand. "What are you doing? Let go of him!"

"He's dead," John said hoarsely, squeezing Daniel's wrist tightly.

Daniel hunched over in pain, the grip threatening to crush his hand. He stared at John in dismay. "I know." He winced as the fingers tightened.

"He's dead," John repeated.

The hand bent forward under John's hold, and Daniel gritted out in pain. "Captain..."

"Why?"

Daniel stilled.

Dull eyes pleaded with Daniel. "Why is it he's dead and you're still alive?"

"Let him go!" Jack tried to pull Daniel's hand away. The captain's sudden spurt of strength was amazing. "Captain...let him go. You don't want to do this."

"He's dead." Raising his head, John cast disbelieving eyes at Jack. "He just...just went. Why? Why is it he's dead, and you're not?" He threw a glare at Daniel, his voice rising. "Why? Tell me! _Why?_"

Daniel hunched forward as more pressure was applied. "I...I don't know..."

Shaking Daniel's captured wrist, John was practically screaming. "Why? Why? It's not right! It shouldn't happen like this!"

"I...I'm sorry," Daniel stuttered.

"Why?" John moaned. He bent his head over Dan's body. "Why him and not you? You got away from Ra. You survived. Why? Why?"

"I..." Daniel stopped. Ra. He looked at Jack, the idea growing in both their minds. Then he turned back to John. "Captain...John...Do you still have the key? The pendant?"

John didn't seem to hear him. He rocked Dan in his arms, still holding onto Daniel's wrist.

"John," Daniel ignored Jack for a minute. He moved his other hand to grab John's shoulder. "Do you still have it?"

The captain lifted old eyes to Daniel. The archeologist's heart lurched at the sight. He swallowed and shook the shoulder.

"Ra's key. Do you still have the key to get into Ra's royal chambers? The inner ones?" Daniel asked urgently. He could feel Jack tensing as he drew the conclusion. "The sarcophagus...It has to be in there somewhere. Ra wouldn't not have one on his ship."

John stopped rocking, stark eyes glued to the two. "Then Dan..." John looked down at his brother.

"There may be a chance," Jack said quietly.

"Colonel!" Sam shouted as she ran into the room. "We...oh God..." Teal'c stopped behind her, his own usually calm expression dark with shock.

John stood, Dan in his arms. "Where?"

Daniel gently touched the key dangling from John's neck. When he turned around, he saw Sam staring at it. She nodded, understanding.

"Follow us!" she shouted, bolting before Jack could even give the order, Teal'c dogging her heels.

Jack looked at Daniel, joking weakly, "She's good." The joke fell flat, and Jack's eyes dulled as they drifted back to the unmoving body in the captain's arms. He stepped in front of Daniel as though if he could block the view then he'd be able to block a similar fate for his friend.

John didn't wait. His arms tightened around Dan, and he took off after Carter.

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"Where?" John stood in the royal courts, frantically whipping his head left and right. "Where?"

"Teal'c, you and Carter check those curtains in the back again," Jack ordered as he, too scanned the area for the sarcophagus. "Daniel—"

The archeologist was already ducking behind the other curtains.

"You said they have one here," John said, looking down at Dan. "How long? I mean...how long before it's...it's too late?"

"I don't know," Jack said quietly.

"_You don't know_?" The captain started for Jack when Daniel burst out of the curtain, followed by Teal'c and Carter.

"Well?" Jack and John both demanded.

Daniel blinked. "I don't see it here. Did you?" He turned hopefully to his teammates, paling as both Sam and Teal'c shook their heads. "I don't understand...it doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe he didn't need it," John whispered. "He didn't bring it with him."

"No." Daniel paced the room, time clicking loudly in his head. "No, you don't understand. They can't be away from it. It's as important as the naquada, and they guard it just as..." Daniel stopped, center of the circle, the chains that had bound him before still there.

Sam frowned, wondering why the archeologist was looking down. "Daniel?"

"I'm so stupid," Daniel murmured. Jack and Teal'c looked at each other. "Why would he need two sets of teleport rings here? He already has one over there." Daniel spun around to the crossed Jaffa statues. He turned back and went over to John. The captain was too surprised when Daniel reached without apology and snatched the pendant off.

Jack stood there stunned. "What are you doing?"

Daniel didn't answer, racing to the statues. He ran his hands over the heads.

"Uh, Daniel. That's for the shield. We're sort of standing in the middle of—"

"I wouldn't stand there," Daniel said abruptly. He pointed to Jack, whose foot was on the circle.

Jack stepped back warily.

"What's he doing?" John hissed. "I thought he said—" He stopped at Jack's look.

"Trust him," the colonel would only say. Jack waved to Daniel to go ahead.

The archeologist went over to the other side of the statues, opposite where John had inserted the charm for the barrier. He ran his hands across the surface, finally making a sound of discovery before inserting the pendant in the slot he found. Daniel stood straighter and waited.

Jack looked over to the archeologist, hands out, saying "What?" But Daniel shook his head and said, "Wait" back to him. Jack darted a look to his double, the taut muscles around his brother's corpse.

The chamber began to rumble.

Automatically, Jack looked down and jumped back one more step when he saw a crack appearing in the center of the circle drawn on the floor. It spread across, and the diameter opened wider and wider to a hole of darkness.

"Ra must have hidden the sarcophagus to protect it like he did with this chamber," Daniel said as he came closer. Sam peered over the edge, jerking her head back when something began to rise.

A long rectangular compartment ascended, stopping at mid-waist level. It was smooth, seamless, carved with the picture of a hawk headed figure, looking from its side, the sun on top of his head.

Daniel didn't marvel at the workmanship. He didn't want to touch it for that matter. But he saw how John held his brother carefully, and so he forced himself to stroke a hand across the surface, finding the lever he needed to open it.

John paused at the golden object. It looked like a coffin.

"Put him inside," Daniel said softly. He brushed against the surface, swallowing as the cold metal caressed his palms, cooing at him. He forced himself to remember the pain of the withdrawal, and the sarcophagus fell silent. Finding the button, he pressed it. Almost immediately, the golden box rumbled, the top surface opening into two halves, revealing the cold, white, marblelike surface within. "In there."

John looked down at Dan, cradled in his arms.

"It's okay," Jack said, sparing a second to look over his shoulder at John. He darted his eyes back to the doorway and corridor, his rifle aimed towards it. "Put him in there."

John swallowed and eased Dan down into the sarcophagus. "T-that's it? Just like that?"

"It'll take a few minutes," Daniel murmured. His eyes darted over to Jack, unsure. "Depending on the damage, that is."

Jack looked at John's anguished face watching Dan's limp form as the surface melded together again into a single carved panel of gold, and the device began to hum. The captain tensed, looking like he was going to pry the thing apart. Jack cleared his throat, trying to draw his attention away. "We should reset the charges from the maze and set up the rest," he reminded.

"I want to stay here." John touched the coffin hesitantly.

"I'll stay," Daniel volunteered. "Captain O'Neill, you need to reset the charges. I can stay here and look for the maps while I'm at it. They should be in this chamber as well." He waved towards the vast room with its black marble and golden statues of hawks.

John hesitated.

"I will stay with Daniel Jackson and your brother," Teal'c rumbled.

Grabbing John by the elbow, Jack whispered in John's ear. "You promised him you'd beat Ra. You can't do that standing around here."

Startled, John looked up and slowly nodded, coming out of his daze. "You're right. I did promise." He stared at the sarcophagus and swallowed. "Let's go."

Jack glanced over to Daniel, silently nodding towards the sarcophagus. "You stay right here."

"I know." Daniel nodded. "We'll be okay, Jack."

"We'll be right back." The colonel grabbed his pack. Carter was already loading up the rifle John gave her, giving her CO a curt nod. "We ready?" He directed the question to John.

The captain stared at the sarcophagus. "Yeah. Guess so." He looked at Daniel.

"I'll let him know where you are if he comes to before you return," Daniel promised.

With a weak smile, John nodded his thanks. One more glance over his shoulder, a prayer murmured inside his head, and John followed after Jack.

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Sammy felt herself being sat up, soft cursing ringing in her ears. She grunted as she felt something soft wrapped around her shoulder, the piece of metal that had stabbed her through, fidgeting inside her body. She opened her eyes and thought she saw Jonas standing in a doorway, smiling.

She reached out a hand for him, but he gave her a crooked grin, turned around and left.

"Hold still."

"Can't get it to stop bleeding, sir."

"Damn...how is she doing?"

"Not too good either. Wait...I think she's starting to wake."

Were they talking about her? Sammy felt heavy, a jacket draped over her. She wanted to protest they shouldn't be wasting time but heard men running back and forth, distant gunfire as the last of the guards were being hunted down, and she relaxed. For the first time, she almost felt like she could see the end of the war coming. Almost.

"Jol..." Someone sounded very upset. "Jol...how are you doing?"

"W-what is wrong with the commander?"

_I'm dying; that's what's wrong_, Sammy thought, wanting to laugh out loud. She didn't know why, but she wanted to laugh just because she hadn't heard it from herself in a long time. So many things she hadn't done in a long time.

"Jol...what about you?"

"...too much...damage...Jermak's ribbon device..." Someone cried out, feminine, soft, so full of pain Sammy had to look and see who else was suffering.

"Sammy, don't move," Jacob commanded. "Let someone else fight the war this time."

"She dying, too?" Sammy rasped.

Jacob stopped. He wanted to correct her, saying only Jolinar was dying, but he could see Sammy shaking with the effort to speak. Too much blood. One can only lose so much before the heart stopped pumping for empty veins. It just wasn't fair. He'd just gotten his daughter back. Jacob looked over to Jolinar, then to his daughter. And sucked in his breath. If only...

"Jol, what if you were to move to a less gravely wounded body?" Jacob leaned forward to her anxiously. "Would you be able to heal that?"

Sammy looked at her father funny. Was someone else also hurt?

Sitting up, Jolinar braced her arm around her stomach. She glanced over to Sammy for some reason and nodded.

It dawned on Hansen, the revelation coming so sharply she sat up straighter. Pain from her sudden movements made her hunch over. "No," she wheezed. "Don't even...t-think of it."

"Sammy, kiddo...come on...she could heal you," pleaded Jacob. "I swear, it's only to help you. If there was any other way, I would suggest it right now. But if she doesn't come in, you'll die."

"Then I die," Hansen hissed, slapping her father's hands away. "How can you even s-suggest such a thing for me?"

"Commander."

Sammy refused to look at her, curling her back towards them, each breath carefully taken in and then let out in a regular pace. But even that didn't stop her pain, so she missed the moment Jolinar gasped and her voice...changed.

"Commander."

There was something different about the voice, the accent heavier, the tone...sadder. It made Hansen turn back around towards her. And saw a tired woman sitting up against the wall, smiling at her with such an old smile.

"You-" Hansen trailed off.

"I...am Sha're..."

Sammy's eyes widened. "You never came out before."

"There was never a need."

"And there's a need now?" Hansen grunted. "Nice try, Tok'ra. Almost fooled me there."

"Commander...Sammy...Jolinar can not die."

Hansen's eyes narrowed. "That's too bad."

"She knows too much...about the Tok'ra...about this war...the Goa'ulds..." Sha're reached out a hand towards her, touching her fingers before withdrawing. "Help her. Please."

"Do you understand what you're asking me to do?" Hansen flinched, pain racking her body. She barely ground out the words between her clenched teeth.

"I am asking you to save two lives. Yours and Jolinar's."

Sammy snorted, hissing in pain, turning her head away in disgust.

Jacob touched her arm. "Sammy...listen to her. Listen to me. We can save both of you, if you just trust us."

"Trust?" Hansen finally laughed, the sound bitter and short. "You're asking me to trust you? Which one? The snake or the host?"

Sha're half crawled to her side, her hand on Sammy's shoulder. "Both."

Sammy stopped, staring. "I'm sorry...but I can't." She pulled away from Sha're's hand. "And if Jolinar leaves you...you'll die."

The Abydonian woman gave her a sad smile which went straight to Sammy's heart. It held a similar sorrow that often brought tears to Sammy's eyes during quiet times alone in a room when no one was watching.

"I already died when I watched the Goa'ulds kill my children in the desert in front of my mother's grave." Sha're's eyes glistened. "What is death once more?"

Sammy stared at her.

"Please, Samantha Hansen of Tau'ri. You must save Jolinar. You must let us save you."

Hansen dropped her eyes, chewing her lower lip. She fell to silence, brooding, under the twin concerned gazes of Sha're and her father, the sounds of war outside falling on deaf ears now.

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The damage from Carter's plastique had riddled the hallways, forcing them to detour back and forth. Jack gritted his teeth, hating needing to constantly stop to check the map. As he returned to the plastique he'd set up before, stopping the timer as it clicked down to thirty seconds, he watched Carter check the hologram again, John looking back where they'd come from.

"He's okay," Jack murmured. "It'll fix him."

"How can you be so sure?"

Carter looked up from the hologram. "Daniel...uh...died once." Three times, actually. "And it saved him." She decided not to add it also saddled him with addiction, the experience binding him to a gurney, moaning with the agony of withdrawal. The recollection made her lower her head back to the map.

"I'm setting this for ten minutes again," Jack interrupted, not liking the trip down memory lane Carter's words gave him. "We get another one in each chamber and use the rings in the inner one. Do you know where the engine room is?" he asked Carter.

The major tapped at the center of the diagram, and the image flashed. "Looks like it's back in the royal court, sir. He controls everything from steering his ship to weapons over there. The battle chamber controls the shields and death gliders if he has any."

"We'd better hurry up then." Abruptly, John took Carter's pack. "We head back for the northeastern chamber?"

Jack grimaced, wondering how the two Goa'uld bodies would look now. The last time he saw Ra and Hathor, they had a death grip on each other, tangled in each other's grasp, each determined to bring the other down. "Yeah."

The three rose, all looking back toward the center of the maze as if they could see from afar how their friends were faring before they reluctantly turned away. Jack let Carter lead, following after her determinedly as he kept his eyes out for any more Jaffa remaining, John at their heels.

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"Are you well?"

Teal'c asked in a gentle voice that made Daniel blink. He nodded silently before he realized his hands were shaking. He stared at the golden compartment, wondering if Dan was awake yet or if it would even work for something that had been eating away at his counterpart for so long. He wondered if the healing had even begun yet, if the usual euphoric feeling had wrapped around Dan. Daniel turned away from the view of the sarcophagus, swallowing.

"I'm going to go and check the inner rooms and see what I can find," Daniel said in a shaky voice, stumbling to his feet.

Teal'c watched him go. He looked behind to the sarcophagus. The Jaffa furrowed his brow, knowing the young human was thinking of his own experiences. This was something he would need to pass along to O'Neill. He knew the colonel would want to know. Teal'c studied the sarcophagus. How could something be such evil and yet be a great healer as well?

"Lo ken Jaffa."

Spinning around at the soft hiss, Teal'c steadied the staff weapon John had left with them. He heard the hum of the hand device and fired towards that direction. The blast sailed towards the center curtain, scorching the velvet into a wall of flames.

"Teal'c! What happened?" Daniel burst out of the back room, eyes huge.

Teal'c spun around with a warning. "Daniel Jackson, stay back!" The Jaffa felt a hard blow shove his back, sending him crashing against the throne. Teal'c forced himself to stay awake, grabbing Daniel by the arm as he sighted Ra emerging from the next curtain, eyes burning with hate, limping with one hand extended, the other wrapped around his middle. One Jaffa in scarred armor came out from behind Ra as well.

"Kill them," Ra seethed. "Kill them all!"


	51. Chapter 50

**CHAPTER FIFTY**

Jack made a face as he smelled the smoke, the acrid tendrils of flesh and blood spilled then burned when the plastique Carter blew had toppled Ra's Jaffa. He had asked the major what had happened to the children, getting only a short "We sent the survivors down" as a reply. He didn't ask what she meant by survivors.

In front of him, John was letting the butt of his staff weapon go through the curtain first to the northeastern chamber. No one returned fire, but the captain still only parted the curtain halfway.

"I don't see anyone," John hissed to Jack.

The colonel tensed. "Can't be. Saw Ra and Hathor doing a cheap imitation of WWF. Their bodies should be here."

John was about to argue when he caught movement behind the consoles. The three tensed, pressing back against the walls and peered through the doorway cautiously. Jack pointed to the curtain, then at himself, mouthing they should go in one at a time. John nodded and took a step, zeroing in on the huddled shadow, feet sticking out behind the station. Slowly, without a sound, he made his way around, spinning abruptly towards the shadow.

The shadow screamed.

John stilled, eyes wide in shock as he saw who it was cowering on the floor.

Hathor.

"You!" John snapped the staff weapon open, the head's petals spreading with a sizzle of energy. Hathor flinched, curling tighter to the wall, hands over her face protectively.

"What? Who is—shit!" Jack skidded to a halt, nearly slamming into John. He stared at Hathor, shocked. The woman's head whipped at Jack, reeling as she saw two of them staring at her.

"Sir?" Carter froze at the sight. Hathor gave a soft whimper, covering her head with her arms.

John's lips curled into a snarl. "You—" He tensed the trigger of his weapon. And fired.

"No, wait!"

Carter grabbed the staff mid-length, jerking it upward as it spat a bolt. In the midst of Hathor's scream, the staff weapon punctured a hole in the ceiling above. John spun around, furious as dust rained down on him.

"What are you doing?" John didn't wait for an answer, spinning back to Hathor. He raised his staff weapon away when he saw Carter dropping to her knees in front of her.

"Carter!" Jack saw the major give him a shake of her head. "What the hell are you—"

"She's not Hathor, sir." Hand on the woman's shoulder, Carter looked at her, studying the frightened eyes and knew how disoriented she must feel. She squeezed the shoulder under her palm and whispered softly, "Janet?"

Janet Frasier stilled, staring at her.

"Do you understand me? Do you know where you are?"

The petite woman whimpered again, lowering her head.

"Carter?" Jack walked around John, his hand back to tell John not to fire. "Are you saying—"

"Her larva is gone, sir. I can sense nothing, only..." Carter made a face. "I guess it would be...an echo I feel from her. But no Goa'uld." Sam turned to Janet again. Gently, she placed a hand on her arm. "It's okay. Can you tell me what happened?"

Janet shook her head, confusion growing by the second. She clutched Sam's arm, sensing the major wouldn't hurt her, looking around the chamber, then down at her clothes. A small sound of dismay escaped her lips as she saw her attire, memory reluctantly returning.

"What the hell are you saying? She's not Hathor? What?" John hissed, taking a step forward. Frasier shrank back, gazing at his armor. Jack placed his hand on his chest.

"Carter...when Daniel and I left, we saw her under a ribbon device. Would that do it?"

"It could. It's possible." Carter sat up higher. "Sir? You said she was under Ra's device? Where's—"

"Shit!" Jack snatched at his radio. "Daniel, come in."

Nothing.

"Carter, keep an eye on her. Cap—" Jack spun around, but John was already gone. "God damn it!" Jack tore after him, half spurred by worry, half by anger he once again hadn't waited.

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Amidst the charred remains of statues, a wild exchange of fire between Teal'c and the guard sent the room to utter destruction. One well placed blast near Teal'c's hiding place behind the throne sent him crashing to the floor with a grunt, his staff weapon spinning out towards the center of the room. Daniel tried to grab the dropped staff weapon, twisting away as Ra's Jaffa lurched at him, the guard's staff weapon swinging down towards him in a deadly arc. Teal'c tackled the Jaffa before the guard could touch the archeologist. Daniel didn't stop. He reached for the dropped weapon, but as his hands curled around it, Ra came up to him, a hand knocking against his chin, slamming the scholar against the sarcophagus.

"Daniel Jackson!"

Teal'c roared as he saw Ra ram Daniel against the golden device again, the archeologist still no match for the wounded Goa'uld. Ra's hands stained with his own blood seemed to enrage the pharaoh more, like a wounded animal snapping back with fury. Teal'c started for them only to be pulled back when the guard rose to his feet, wrapping massive arms around Teal'c's chest. The royal guard squeezed, and Teal'c slammed his hands down on the arms just as he was lifted off his feet. Head snapping back, Teal'c butted the back of his head against the Jaffa's face. The guard grunted, releasing Teal'c as he staggered back.

"Shio tok!" Ra's hand rose, the gem nestled in his ribbon device glowing once. Ra's palm flexed, the webbing around the glove glittering, and Teal'c flew back, crashing against the wall once more. He stilled on impact.

"Teal'c!" Daniel lurched to his feet, grabbing for Ra's hand to stop the Goa'uld from attacking again as the royal guard grabbed Teal'c by the arms, dragging him back to the chains on the wall. Daniel gasped as Ra's hand whipped across and slammed down on his stomach, shoving him up against the sarcophagus.

"Why do I see you everywhere I go?" Ra seethed. "You have countered my reign even through my _re'klya_! You turned even my own queen against me." The pharaoh leaned his body against Daniel, blood soaking through robes, into Daniel's uniform as well. Ra pressed his face close to Daniel's. The archeologist tried to fight free, the eyes in front of him glowing so brightly he thought they would burn him.

Ra suddenly took notice of the sarcophagus under Daniel. "Who lies within my sencray?"

Daniel winced, feeling Ra's fingers in his ribs, the carvings of the sarcophagus digging into Jack's jacket as the Goa'uld's full weight pressed down on him. He felt something nudge him on his hip, and his eyes darted briefly below to the hilt still buried deep in Ra.

The pharaoh noticed his attention and snarled. "This is nothing! I've fought in battles and slain my own enemies! Do you think a mere blade can cut me asunder? No one can take down a god. No one!" Ra's hands bunched around Daniel's collar. His eyes flashed once more. "Who lies within?"

"No...no one!" Daniel gasped, feeling Ra pulling him off the box. Daniel knew if Ra saw who was inside, he might make the connection about the realities, the planet, everything.

"Lies."

Ra gave Daniel a meaty smack across the face. The archeologist slumped to the floor, weakly trying to grab Ra as the pharaoh stumbled towards his throne, barking at his Jaffa to watch Daniel. Ra tapped at the gem on his throne, the ship rumbling in response, the windows closing, sealing away the view of the world.

The ship was leaving.

"I will return to this planet with a hundred more ships," Ra whispered, eyes smoldering at Daniel. The guard grabbed Daniel by the arm, wrenching him to stand up. The archeologist feebly shoved at him. Ra kept one hand braced on the blade, circling Daniel with scornful eyes, lips twisted with a mixture of pain and anger. He leaned closer to Daniel, sneering. "Perhaps I shall allow my _re'klya _to see it before the execution?"

Desperate, Daniel imitated what he saw Hathor do.

He yanked his hand free, grabbed the knife in Ra's ribs, and ruthlessly gave it a twist.

Head back, Ra screamed, eyes flashing towards the ceiling, then towards Daniel as he turned the ribbon device inches from Daniel's face and let its beam hurtle the archeologist back against the sarcophagus. Daniel slid down to the floor with a groan, but he forced himself to lunge forward, tackling Ra at the knees before the guard could grab him. The two flew away from the center circle, from the sarcophagus and into the steps.

The ruler, still reeling from the pain, roared at the impossible fact that this human was getting the best of him. His hand whipped out, the device sending waves of energy across the room, wildly firing, trying to reach Daniel, but the young human rolled away, reaching for the staff weapon Teal'c had dropped. Just as he aimed it towards Ra, another shockwave sent him slamming against the sarcophagus. Daniel tried to get away, but Ra threw another one at him. And another.

Until one landed on the sarcophagus.

"No!"

The blast wrapped itself around the compartment, blue bolts of energy snaking around it before the sarcophagus gave a shriek and fell permanently silent.

Daniel, dazed, wasn't sure if it was he who screamed or Ra as the Goa'uld realized he'd inadvertently destroyed his own road to immortality and power.

Or perhaps it was John, who stared at the sarcophagus, the charred husk before screaming, roaring, rushing at Ra.

The pharaoh had stared at his own destruction with shock and wasn't able to defend himself at first when John tackled him, pummeling him with endless fists. John was screaming at him uncontrollably, face red, as he kept at him until Ra's hand device threw him off again.

Daniel tried to get up. God, he could feel the warmth from the sarcophagus ebbing away through his jacket. He tried to turn his head, to see if it was still working, but felt his body turning to water, sinking him back down to the floor. Someone caught him, and he looked up, dizzy, stiffening when he saw Hathor's white features somewhere in the distance.

"Daniel, Daniel, it's okay!" Sam's face came into view as well, her hands bracing him, one running behind his head to check. The scholar hissed as she found a lump. "She doesn't have the larva any more. She's not Hathor. Not anymore."

Staring, Daniel whispered "The sarcophagus?" sagging when Sam shook her head sorrowfully.

"Carter, get him to the rings! Now!"

Daniel wanted to protest that they hadn't found the maps yet for the rebels. He heard a thud and turned in time to see Jack slamming into Ra's guard, throwing him to the floor before he staggered over to where Teal'c was. Before the colonel could rouse his friend, the guard clamped a hand over his shoulder, pulling him back. Jack spun around on contact, double fists swinging up and connecting with the guard's jaw. The Jaffa toppled back as Jack shook his injured hand with a sharp hiss.

In the meantime, John slammed his fists on both sides of Ra's torso, screaming in Goa'uld at the ruler, barely jerking back at the pharaoh's returning blows. Blood streamed down his nose, but John didn't look like he cared.

Sam pulled at Daniel's arm, trying to get him to move, but her head whipped back when she saw Frasier, shrinking to hide behind the statues, her eyes riveted on Ra. As the major tried to reach for the woman, she heard the hum of the ribbon device, spun around aiming with her sidearm. But too quickly, she felt the energy from Ra's ribbon device, slamming her against the broken sarcophagus, her gun spinning down to the floor besides it. Carter slid down in a slump without a word.

Seeing the major on the floor, Jack took a step towards them, grunting as he fell forward, the guard latching on to his ankles. The colonel snapped his head up as he saw Daniel running in a crooked weave, jaw set as he headed towards Teal'c with the intention to break him free. Jack kicked out at the guard, a howl telling him he'd made contact.

"Enough!" Ra roared, his ribbon device snapping out like a whip, ramming into John's stomach before a burst of energy from it sent the captain flying back, crashing into Jack just as he rose to his feet. Daniel skidded to a halt inches from where Teal'c was as the two O'Neills rolled to a stop by his feet.

"What is this?" Circling around the dazed O'Neills, Ra drew comparisons of the faces. "Two of you? How is this possible?"

"Maybe..." Jack managed to gasp out. "Maybe you need glasses—Hey!" He snarled at the guard as the Jaffa grabbed Daniel by the back of his neck, shoving him down to the floor.

With a fist over Daniel's collar, yanking him to his knees, Ra pulled him closer until they were practically nose to nose. "Who was within my sencray?" hissed Ra, standing over him. Daniel flinched at the hot breath blowing on his face. "Who?"

Daniel said nothing, only stared back at him defiantly.

"_Re'klya_ thul chet!"

With a backhand, Daniel's head snapped back. Ra released him so the archeologist would go crashing to the floor.

"Son of a—" Jack struggled, seething as he heard a staff weapon sizzle open directly behind his head, a boot digging into his back as the Jaffa stepped on top of him, preventing him from getting up.

Ra's head tilted to the side, observing Daniel as the man shakily got up on his hands and knees, struggling to crawl away, swaying. The Goa'uld coldly went over and kicked Daniel's legs. The man buckled, dropping on his stomach with a groan.

"Who was in there?" Ra hissed, another kick as Daniel tried to rise. The archeologist rolled, arms crossed over his head to protect it, suddenly pressed up against the sarcophagus.

"He doesn't know anything!" John shouted, banging a fist on the floor as Ra stalked closer to Daniel and the sarcophagus. "Damn you! Leave him alone!"

"Skaara..." Daniel whispered, arm around his sore stomach. "Don't do this. Fight him..."

"Fight me?" Ra tilted his head back and laughed, staggering back, hand over the blade. He grinned at Daniel with malice, eyes twitching as he clasped a fist around the blade's handle. With a pull, a barely contained grunt of pain, Ra pulled the knife out. He turned the blood soaked knife around in front of Daniel. "How could a mere slave, a mere host for my needs, fight a god?"

"You're not a god," Daniel snarled. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Teal'c was moving, legs rising behind the Jaffa. Teal'c's eyes held an iron glint as he struggled out of his bonds. Daniel could hear Sam's breathing quickening, coming out of her stunned state. He didn't dare turn to her and give her away. But somehow, knowing everyone was alert gave him the strength to look at Ra, his voice firmer. "You're not a god." Daniel started as he felt the sidearm digging below his left thigh. His hand slowly drifted over to his legs as he repeated, "You're not a god. You're a parasite. You take things that don't belong to you."

Ra's lips curved into an arrogant smile. "All things belong to us, _re'klya_. Even you." He smiled as he felt the ship still, having left the atmosphere. Ra turned around, dismissing Daniel and walked towards his throne, the proud royal stance he carried still evident despite the hand Ra clamped over his wound.

"We will return to my world where I will be reborn anew." Ra looked over his shoulder back to Daniel. "And there...I will teach you all a little humility before I return to your planet to punish them."

No. Daniel turned to Jack, the colonel glaring at Ra's back. Jack turned to Daniel, eyes widening as he saw Daniel slip his hand under his thigh, pulling out the gun just enough for Jack to see the gunmetal black surface.

Suddenly, Teal'c swung his legs up, hooking them around the Jaffa's neck, pulling him back towards him, away from Jack and John. Carter leaped to her feet, about to run towards Daniel for the gun. The two O'Neills rose as Ra spun around, scowling. Jack was about to run towards Ra when he heard the staff weapon reactivate. Sam skidded to a halt, Jack and John froze, their hands up.

The Goa'uld glared at Teal'c. "Release my Jaffa or your friends will die," Ra hissed.

Teal'c glowered, loosening his legs and dropping them down again. Carter glowered at Ra, refusing to sit down on the floor at Ra's wave of his hand. But when the guard poked his weapon in Jack's shoulders, the major reluctantly sat down, scowling.

Ra sniffed, unimpressed and stepped forward to his throne again.

"Don't move."

Ra turned around slowly to Daniel, eyes drifting to the gun in his hands. He didn't stop at the sight of the gun shaking in Daniel's hands. He stalked closer.

"I will tear you from limb to limb myself," Ra hissed, staggering a little. "Then I will burn your planet to the ground for this insolence. Burn it. Burn it all!" Ra stopped as Daniel's finger pulled back the trigger, cocking the gun. "You shoot and my guard will kill your friends."

Daniel's eyes automatically darted over to Jack. The colonel looked over to Daniel, eyes dull with pain, but still clear in the command. He gave Daniel a short nod. The archeologist's gaze went back to Ra, Skaara's face too twisted in rage to be recognizable any more as the youth Daniel knew liked to follow Jack around, saluting.

This wasn't him.

Ra noted Daniel's hesitation and flung out his ribbon device, the gem beginning to glow not towards Daniel but with deadly intent at Jack and John.

_I'm sorry, Skaara._ Daniel fired.

Ra jerked, a spot of blood showing on his stomach. He roared to his guard who grasped his staff weapon tighter, preparing to fire, but Teal'c suddenly kicked the guard's back. Jack and John pivoted around, their bodies slamming into his, Jack knocking the staff weapon away.

Ra stopped, looking at Daniel as if he couldn't believe the human would dare. His hand shook, coming up, the ribbon device flaring as he ran towards Daniel, screaming.

Daniel fired again.

And again.

The crystal shattered as the bullet landed square on its surface. But Ra kept coming.

And another bullet rang out.

Heart hammering, Daniel wondered why Ra was still standing, the eyes still on him. And then, something crumbled, the light flickering, and Daniel saw the face change, looking younger, calmer. It looked like Skaara surfacing, a hint of gratitude on the tanned face before the anger of the Goa'uld returned over the tortured eyes like a veil.

Then Ra fell.

Daniel's hand dropped to the floor, the gun clattering out of nerveless fingers.

Jack wheezed, crawling towards Ra, getting to his feet as he neared him. The colonel looked down unemotionally at the pharaoh, watching rage flicker once in Ra's eyes before fading away.

"Dan..." John rose to his feet, walking past Carter who haltingly went over to release Teal'c. The captain ignored Daniel, dismissed Janet as he stopped over the sarcophagus. John stared at the gold coffin realizing there was no hum from the alien device. "No..." he whispered, his eyes dulling with grief. "We...we were so close..."

Daniel stepped forward, wanting to say something when he felt Jack's hand on his shoulder. Looking over, Daniel saw Jack give him a shake of his head. But he shrugged it off and made his way to John. Daniel had to set both hands against the sarcophagus to keep upright, but he kept his voice steady.

"I'm sorry."

Staring at the large box, John asked in a flat voice. "There's not another one of these around is there?"

"No...Not likely."

John took in a shuddering breath, bracing his hands on the sarcophagus. He lowered his head over it, falling silent.

Exchanging a look with the colonel, Carter went back to where Frasier was hiding, her soft tones coaxing the woman to emerge. John didn't even give her a glance, head bowed over the sarcophagus.

Jack tore his eyes away from the grieving brother, turning to Daniel. The archeologist had his head turned away, staring at the floor. He came up to him, hand on his back. "Were you able to find any maps?"

Shaking his head, Daniel stared at the body. "No. The glove...if we had used it on the throne...we might have been able to..." His back curved to a slouch.

"You did what you had to do," the colonel said quietly, but his own throat tightened as he saw the shattered remains of the crystal surrounding the body, the sounds of the gunshots still echoing in his mind.

"Now I know how you felt," murmured Daniel as he looked at Jack. "When you had to..."

Jack forced his mouth to work, keeping his voice flat to avoid the memory. "He's still out there, Daniel. For us, he is." He relaxed when he saw him slowly nod, tearing his gaze away from the sight of the corpse. Jack gave Daniel's back a quick rub before walking over with the backpacks gripped in his hands. "Captain," he said quietly. "Let's set the final charges."

John said nothing, his face hooded in darkness.

"John?" Daniel called out after a moment.

"Fine..." John said dully, still not looking. "Blow this ship up."

Daniel gave Jack a concerned look. Sam and Teal'c were slowly putting the remainder of their plastique on the walls, around the throne.

"Set the timer for two minutes," Jack said quietly, noting the ship was still shaking. "Major, can we use the teleport rings?"

Carter shook her head. "I don't know, sir."

"The ship is above the planet, O'Neill." Standing after setting the last of the explosives, Teal'c looked like he was recovering, his step more steady. "We can transport down, but I do not know where we will arrive."

Jack frowned. "It won't beam us into space or anything, will it?"

Shaking her head, Carter didn't think so. "It's a straight trajectory when the ships leave and it doesn't feel like it's begun hyper—"

"I'm staying."

Jack swiveled back to John. "What?"

"I'm not going with you. I'm staying." John rubbed his hand on the sarcophagus. "I'm not leaving him alone."

Jack reached over, snagging John by the elbow. The captain wrenched free. "Look," Jack said lowly, "I know how you feel—"

"_You do not know how I feel_!" snapped John, red rimmed eyes locking with Jack's for a moment. John saw something in Jack's gaze, and his tone lowered. "You...Just go. Get out of here before this ship automatically heads back for Ra's base. It's rigged to do so no matter what."

"We're not leaving you up here."

"_I said I'm not leaving_!"

Daniel stepped towards the two when he stopped, wincing as he felt something inside him twinge. He suddenly gasped, dropping to his knees. John turned, dead eyes holding a glimmer of concern when the archeologist suddenly clutched at his head.

Jack spun around. "What's wrong?"

The archeologist shook his head, unexpectedly crying out, his hands slamming down to the floor. By the time Jack reached him, Daniel stiffened.

The colonel reeled back as he saw Daniel's body convulse, all of a sudden appearing to be two, then three, stretching, twisting, the cries of pain multiplying as if it wasn't one person in pain but two.

As quickly as it came, the attack was over, and Daniel fell sideways. Jack caught him neatly in his arms, the weight slamming him down on his knees.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded, brushing his hand against Daniel's forehead. Jack reached for Daniel's wrist, finding the pulse fast but steady. The scientist stirred with a moan.

Daniel's eyes fluttered open. "'ack?"

"Hold still, Daniel." Jack looked over to the major. "Carter?"

"It..." Carter stared at the sarcophagus. "It looked like an entropic cascade seizure, but then that would mean—"

"He's alive." Daniel's voice was barely a whisper. "The walls...to begin again...the bracelets...they must mean once they're off...the effects begin immediately...the cascading starts. But that means he must still be..." His eyes widened, and he struggled to get up. Before he could, the colonel pulled the discarded bracelet from his pocket and snapped it over Daniel's wrist. "Jack...we have to get him out of there!"

His friend protected, Jack had already started rising to his feet, Sam taking over for him, her hand around Daniel's back to support him. Heading for the sarcophagus, Jack and Teal'c saw John was already clawing at the sarcophagus.

"The thing must have been thick enough to shield him from the hand device!" Jack said, grunting as he couldn't part the panels. "Damn it! Where's my knife?" Jack remembered, glancing back at Ra's body, swearing when he didn't see the blade anywhere nearby. He went back to trying to pry it open instead.

"Why won't it open?" John banged at it, blood from scraped raw fingers streaking the box.

Teal'c grunted, muscles twitching as he dug into an edge, one leg bracing against the sarcophagus as he pulled. The top panel shifted, moving a crack.

Daniel wobbled over with Sam's help, extending a staff weapon to them. The pole was snatched from his hand. Jack jammed the tip into the growing crack and pushed down on it, using it like a lever.

"Come on, come on," Jack chanted to himself, gritting his teeth as both Teal'c and he pulled. Slowly, the stone halves parted with a grinding noise. And everyone stopped.

John was shaking, almost fearing what he'd find. He leaned forward, looking inside.

Lying still, face pale, Dan lay in the bottom of the sarcophagus. He was just how John had left him, hands limp against his sides, head turned slightly to the side, unmoving.

"Is he?" Daniel couldn't finish the question. He leaned against the compartment weakly, looking inside.

When John wouldn't reach in, Jack did, pressing two fingers against Dan's jugular, the younger man's head moving against the colonel's palm. Jack could feel everyone staring at him waiting expectantly. Finally, he pulled back, facing John.

And nodded.

Choking, John surged forward, grabbing Dan by the shoulders, gathering him up in a single swoop. The younger brother didn't stir, but John took a shuddering breath as he could feel warm breath coming out of Dan's slightly opened mouth against his throat. "Oh God..." He drew the man closer, his head bowed.

"We'd better get out of here. See if the rings can get us home or get this ship to turn around," Jack said quietly, smiling briefly at the pair. He placed a hand on Daniel's elbow. "You okay for now?"

Daniel nodded mutely. He opened his mouth to speak and stiffened when he saw something behind Jack. The colonel spun around and saw Ra sitting up, glaring at them.

"Oh crap, can't you ever stay dead?" Jack complained. He grabbed Daniel by the arm, positioning the archeologist behind him.

Ra didn't speak. He lowered his hand, slipping it into his robes. A soft whine could be heard as he pulled out a silver globe, eyes burning in a face twisted with indescribable rage.

"It's a romna!" John shouted. He stumbled back. "Get to the teleport rings! Now!"

Jack could hear Teal'c's definition ringing in his head. Not enough time. Not enough time! He could feel the sound of the romna growing louder, their steps suddenly slowing. He heard Carter shouting something, and he whipped his head around, even when he knew it would only slow him down. He turned and saw Carter disappear, then Janet. Startled, he felt something tingle, a familiar sensation, but before he could make the connection, he felt his limbs liquefy, heard Daniel calling out, Ra's outraged scream and suddenly—

He dropped down on the floor of a drab gray room.

"Greetings, Earthling!" someone boomed over his head.

_Earthling?_ Jack looked up, yelping as he felt bodies suddenly piling on top of him. His head slammed down again at the weight. Stars sang.

"Oops." A voice sounded sheepish as it said, "That's gotta hurt."

"Perhaps if they were standing still, we would have been able to retrieve them much more efficiently."

"Well, next time, I'll remind them to do that."

Jack grunted, feeling the bodies rolling away from him. He could have sworn he heard Ferretti, whether it was Major or Captain, he couldn't tell. Jack whipped his head around and counted, sagging back to the floor when the number came up right. That meant only one thing. He turned back to the voices and grinned when he saw a short, gray alien tilting its huge head at him, Kawalsky, Ferretti and Maybourne crouching with concerned looks.

The ship suddenly shuddered, sending everyone sliding sideways a few feet before it righted itself again.

"What the hell was that?" yelped Kawalsky, standing upright with alarm.

The alien blinked its huge black eyes calmly. "A Goa'uld craft has exploded thirty miles above your atmosphere."

Jack stared blearily at a screen as it popped up. He grinned at the rest of his teammates as they groggily sat up. He nodded towards the Asgard, waggling his eyebrows.

"You just gotta love them," he quipped, sagging back to plop down spread-eagled on the floor, eyes staring at the bright colors of the screen, at the ship slowly disintegrating from Ra's own romna. "Can we go home now?"

The Asgard looked at the human representatives, who shrugged, puzzled why everyone in SG-1 started to laugh.

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Sitting in the back of the room, waiting as the Asgard ship settled into orbit around Earth, John watched his brother cradled carefully in his arms. The hysterical laughter out of relief had faded too quickly when everyone realized Dan had not awakened yet. So they all lingered in the room, waiting. But John ignored them all, focusing on watching for any signs that Dan was coming round, watching to see if the sarcophagus had been able to heal his brother before Ra's ribbon device destroyed it.

John's breath caught in his throat as he saw Dan open his eyes, staring at nothing. For a moment, he thought perhaps it hadn't worked, and Dan was still blind, or worse, the destroyed sarcophagus had left some brain damage. Dan kept staring at nothing.

Then...he blinked.

John didn't hear everyone behind him, hear Kawalsky exclaim out loud. The SG-1 team seemed to have taken a step back or left. He didn't know, nor did he care. He could feel himself shaking, the body he was cradling in his arms seeming to vibrate along with him, except, it was moving all on its own.

When Dan blinked again, John realized his brother was waiting for the devices he no longer had to come back on and take his vision away. He smiled as best he could at Dan, hoping it would convey everything he could find no words for.

Dan's eyes widened when the darkness didn't come as usual. He opened his mouth, startled, but nothing came out. John wanted to say something, wanted to say he was okay. That they'd won. But he couldn't speak. Why couldn't he speak?

Dan raised his hand up to his eyes and gazed at it with childlike wonder, turning it to see the back of his hand, then his palm. He lowered it and went back to staring at John.

Dazed blue eyes blinked once more, and Dan shakily lifted his finger and tapped John on the chin. A soft "oh" expelled from him when he felt solid flesh. He turned his head and looked around. Amazed eyes wandered the surrounding area, freezing briefly on the gray alien who stood there almost invisible against the gray background, stopping at familiar faces before stilling over Daniel and Jack. His eyes widened at their faces, and his hand went up to his own.

"Like looking into a mirror...I...H-how...?" Dan's voice was whisper soft as if he was afraid speaking out loud would dispel the moment. "I...I died...I felt the...how?"

"The sarcophagus," Daniel said just as quietly from a short distance away. John had forgotten they were still there.

"Unbelievable," he breathed. "I...this technology is amazing...I...it would explain how Ra was able to maintain his appearance and youth for nearly a millen—"

John couldn't take it any more. Something inside him burst and seemed to make everything move faster. His arms clenched, and he pulled Dan forward, burying the light colored head against his chest. Dan gave a muffled squeak in surprise, caught mid-sentence. Surprised, embarrassed, and maybe a bit concerned as well, Dan fumbled against him, hands pushing gently at John's chest, his heart thumping wildly and hard enough for John to feel it against his.

And something gave way.

He was alive. Dan was alive, breathing, talking, seeing...

John ducked his head down, chin against Dan's hair. He could feel Dan's breath against his throat as his brother tried to speak.

And the first tear dropped.

"John?" Dan whispered when he felt his brother begin to shake.

John couldn't reply. He still couldn't speak. He held on to Dan as tightly as he could without breaking the frail form, face hidden in his brother's hair and began to cry.

Dan stilled, hearing the choked tears, felt the arms circling him like a vise. He dropped all protests; whatever he was going to say went unsaid. He sat there, curling within John's hold, listening to him cry after over three years of determination and reassuring words told to him repeatedly as he lay in the darkness.

Three years.

And it was finally over.

His arms came up and around John's back and shoulders, and Dan squeezed back as hard as he could.

"It's okay," Dan said softly into John's ear. He felt the knot of fear he thought permanently resided in his chest loosening, fading away. Dan shut his eyes, opening them again and reveling in the colors and light around him. "I'm okay, John. It's over. We're okay. We're going to be okay."

John nodded against his cheek, voice still caught in his throat, arms tighter around him. Dan burrowed his head under John's chin, his breath coming out in a shuddering sob. He let go of his own tears.

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The moment the Asgard's beam deposited all of them in the embarkation room, Jack threw his arm around Daniel, grinning at the rest of his team as Kawalsky bounded out the door. Maybourne gave the SG-1 team a broad smile before steering John and a shaky Dan O'Neill down the ramp. John reached over and clasped Jack on the shoulder before walking away, following the whoops he heard outside the embarkation room as Kawalsky announced to everyone the Asgards were there.

Jack sighed happily, knowing the Asgards were plucking Jaffa off the planet, wishing for a moment that he could see their surprised faces when it happened. He waggled his eyebrows towards his team. "Well, kids, I think this means we deserve a nice-" His voice trailed off when he saw Major Ferretti standing there, helmet off. "Ferretti?"

The major had a regretful look on his face, and Jack straightened, arm dropping from Daniel's shoulder.

"Ferretti, what is it?"

"It's...it's Jolinar, sir."

Daniel tensed. "What? What happened?"

Ferretti looked at Daniel, pity clear in his eyes. "Something went wrong on Jermak's ship, she was taken hostage. We...we were forced to fire upon her to get through to Jermak."

"Her s-symbiote," stuttered Daniel faintly.

"She had...other wounds...from Jermak's hand device. Daniel...she was forced to leave her host body and..."

"The Asgards—"

"Can't do anything for a once blended host," a dual voice interrupted. "Otherwise, they would have beamed her up as well as the others when they arrived."

Daniel started when he saw Sammy Hansen step into the embarkation room, smiling briefly past Daniel's shoulder when she saw Dan and John, sobering again at Daniel.

Daniel stared at her for a long time, jerking back when her eyes suddenly glowed.

Sammy Hansen's voice suddenly deepened by an additional one. "Come with me...Daniel."

Jack quietly came closer, a hand on Daniel's stiff back. The archeologist tensed, stepping away from the contact. Daniel gave Jack a look over his shoulder, stricken before he tore his gaze away and went after Hansen. Jack closed his eyes briefly before following.

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Daniel skidded to a halt in the room the rebels had placed her in to wait for her to heal. He nearly dropped down to his knees in front of her. His eyes fixed on the form sitting up like a limp doll against the wall.

Sha're sat there on the floor, a jacket over her shoulders. The beaded dress she wore was smudged from battle, torn at the sleeves. And yet she looked like she was sitting in a throne, head up, her hands clasped together on her lap.

"No..." Daniel whispered in dismay. She couldn't die. They'd won. She couldn't die here. She couldn't.

Dark locks covered the curve of her face as she smiled, looking up at the commander as she did. When the blond woman nodded, Sha're sighed and closed her eyes briefly. The new host cast glowing eyes on Daniel. Coming forward, she placed a hand on Daniel's shoulder, guiding him closer, the man unwilling to venture another step. "She...wishes to speak with you."

Dark eyes opened and they gazed towards his stricken face. Daniel knelt and opened his mouth. To his dismay, no words would come.

"There is no need for you to speak." Sha're's voice was exactly how he remembered it. Daniel shut his eyes to conceal the face from his sight. A gentle finger traced the profile of his cheek, and he opened his eyes once more. Her warm eyes, their occupying glow absent, gazed back at him with a mixture of pain and pure understanding. Like a mother would console a child, she smiled, lines of pain etched around her mouth.

"Jolinar...she told me...about your wife..."

Daniel nodded mutely. Sha're gasped and shut her eyes tightly in pain, slumping forward until her head was on his shoulder. Daniel's hands clenched. He wanted so much to hold her. But...but it meant telling himself this was her.

And he was losing her again.

"I...She...we were the same?" Sha're 's voice was warm against his throat. She turned her face so she could look up at him.

"Y-yes."

"Then I know...that you must love her very m-much." A trembling hand caressed his face.

Daniel choked, burying his head in her hair as he finally pulled her close. He nodded, unable to speak into that thick straight hair, almost seeing it curl into a springy cascade.

"And I know...she must have known...that you..." She coughed, and Daniel felt something warm trickle down his jacket. "You never stopped l-looking...neet?"

"N-neet." Daniel's hands, unbidden, came up and pulled her closer. Sha're sighed.

"Then know this...she must have loved you too...as I know...I-I would have...had I known you...Dan-yel..."

"God..." Daniel couldn't stand it. Hearing his name on her lips once again.

"Shhh...It is all right...shhh...hear me as you would her...she always knew...and always loved...it is all right." She drew closer to his ear. "I...she...we...died...fre..."

The hand stroking his back fell.

Daniel stilled, feeling the body lose its tension as the last breath rattled in her chest until it faded like the wind. He closed his eyes, breathing in and out deeply, trying to tell himself this wasn't his reality. It wasn't. He'd already lost her. But the longing, the grief he'd tried so hard to push back since the day his Sha're died, renewed, and it took all his will to just hold her gently and not crush her against him and never let go.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, a hand he knew immediately was one of his friends, although for the life of him, he couldn't tell whose it was right now.

"Daniel." It was Jack. Daniel didn't know why he hadn't figured it out immediately. "Daniel, let her go. She's gone."

The young man nodded, swallowing. Before he let Jack pull him up, he brought the body closer to him and whispered into her ear, feeling stray tears trickling down from his chin to her hair.

"Thank you." Daniel kissed the tip of her ear, choked back the odd lump in his throat and let the Tok'ra lift the body from his arms. No longer finding the strength to stand, he could only watch the silent procession as they bore her away.

Daniel looked up, saw unshed tears glimmering in the commander's eyes, glowing as a reminder that Jolinar had survived.

Sha're did not die in vain.

Not here.

Not there.

And he smiled. Bitterly, but smile he did.

Commander Hansen, host of Jolinar now, bowed silently and went to follow the procession. Daniel kept his eyes on the door until he could hear the people in the hallways fall into a respectful silence, the footsteps fading away. He turned his head and saw Jack and the others surrounding him.

"Hey," Jack said, his own smile tight.

Daniel nodded and wiped his face with the edge of his sleeve. A rag floated into view, and he looked up again into the bright eyes of Sam Carter. Teal'c stood behind her, his face dark with emotion, with as much feeling as the young man had ever seen. And suddenly, Daniel felt like he needed to say something.

"I…" He gave a funny laugh. "I don't know why this s-should bother me…" He sniffed as he wiped the tear tracks off his face, wondering why there was still moisture there. "I mean…she wasn't…she wasn't really my wife…not here…I already l-lost mine…I…"

Sam murmured something, leaned forward and hugged him as hard as she could. Startled, Daniel fumbled, trying to shift away, embarrassed at the attention when Jack and Teal'c crouched down and placed their hands on his knees, Jack placing a hand on his back as well.

And Daniel stopped struggling.

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The mood of the SGC base was pensive.

From the moment the technician announced there was a signal returning from the mirror planet, people were milling about the embarkation room, wounded rebels and SGC staff alike. After hours of no word since the teams had gone through to Jermak's ship and set a course for the alternative Earth, the wailing sirens at the first chevron engaging sounded loud, booming throughout the base. Gazes were glued to the Stargate. Some had rifles steady on the developing wormhole. Everyone was silent, even the alarms mute now as they waited.

"Signal's SG-1, sir," the technician told Hammond quietly.

The general looked over to Davis. Even the liaison was leaning closer to the observation window. "Open the iris."

The metal shield spun open, revealing the blue sparkles of the event horizon.

Everyone waited.

The first person came out. Major Ferretti stood still for a moment, waiting, turning his head expectantly as another person walked through.

Colonel O'Neill.

By now, the crowd was murmuring, shifting in their places, unable to read the incoming soldiers' faces, their expressions blank.

One by one, every member of SG-1 and of Ferretti's team came through, stepping down the ramp to make room for the next arrival, bruises and soot coloring their faces. Many of them waved off the medics converging on them, eyes glued to the Stargate for the next incoming traveler. The injured rebels, who'd been left behind, milled nervously, unable to read their expressions. When John O'Neill walked through, Dan in tow, the rebels' whispering grew loud in anticipation. Then, a small woman came through, dwarfed in drab borrowed clothes, almost meek as two guards framed her. The crowd didn't recognize her at first. Then a hiss of recognition punctuated the silence, and the voices grew, the woman shrinking back at the surge of anger. But all the voices stopped the moment three figures stepped through the Stargate and stopped at the top of the ramp.

Commander Hansen, General Maybourne and General Hammond.

The room fell to a stillness, breathing hushed as Hansen stepped forward, pinpointing the injured men she was forced to leave behind, scanning, making sure she met each of their eyes.

Then, she nodded. Just once.

The room exploded into cheers, clapping, hugging as rebels raced to their comrades to exchange salutes, pound a few backs. SG-1 and SG-3 clamored down the ramp to give them space, grinning broadly as they turned around to watch the celebration.

"Welcome home, men," General Hammond's voice was practically drowned out from the din, but Jack heard it clear enough to turn around towards the general and solemnly salute. Uniform a mess, bruises mottled everyone's faces, their eyes were clear, proud, and held a glint of their own celebration that Hammond could see even from the observation booth. So the general felt a little bad when he leaned back to the microphone, ignoring Davis' chuckle and said:

"Report to the infirmary. Debriefing in two hours."

The two teams groaned out loud together as Hammond let out a chuckle of his own.


	52. Chapter 51

**CHAPTER FIFTY ONE**

Daniel rubbed his eyes, waking up in the darkness of his living room. Blinking, he wondered why he was up after finally being able to drift off. After hours of poking and prodding, blood tests and then more blood tests to ensure his and Dan's nanocytes were truly dissolving back into their bloodstream, Daniel felt like a vampire had sucked him dry, his bones crumbled to dust. It was a draining time in the infirmary, pretending to be okay under the stare the alternate Janet Frasier was giving him and the close proximity of his Janet Fraiser as she checked him over. Daniel wanted nothing more than to crawl into the first bunk available and push off the debriefing and memories for another day.

And then, Dan wanted to leave the base.

_"Look, I feel fine." Sitting up on the gurney, Dan nodded towards Daniel as he argued with Warner. "Stop poking me. I hardly have any blood left after you drained me dry!"_

_Daniel looked away as John gave him an exasperated look. "Was this your idea?"_

_"No," Daniel mumbled, glaring at Sam as she gave him no help at all. Sam was pretending to talk to her counterpart as Hansen waited for a checkup with great protesting herself. So he shot one to Jack, who was keeping an eye on the alternate Fraiser. Jack looked over his shoulder before whistling innocently as he turned away. Daniel hesitantly accepted a glass of water from Doctor Fraiser, the woman giving him an awkward pat on the knee before leaving to give him some space. Daniel hid his next response behind the glass. "It was Jack's."_

_"What?"_

_Dan clamped his hands over his ears and sounded annoyed. "Thanks, I didn't really need my hearing, John."_

_"Why the hell do you want to go out there right now?"_

_"The colonel...I mean, Jack, offered to show us the town, celebrate before we head back." Dan stuck out his lower lip. "It's only for a day. Then we have to go back and work—"_

_"I work, you rest."_

_"Anyway," Dan went on, giving his brother a glare. "It'll be nice..." He gave a small smile. "To see the world as it used to be. Gives us something to look forward to."_

_John fell silent._

_"Besides, I feel fine. Hell, I never felt better! That thing is unbelievable!" Dan swung his arms, nearly toppling off the gurney until John steadied him. Sheepishly, Dan shrugged. _

_"I just don't like the idea of us driving back and forth from the town to the base!" John was still feebly protesting._

_"You wouldn't have to. The colonel said we could stay over at Daniel's place."_

_Daniel sputtered out water, choking. Alarmed, Sam pounded his back as he shot Jack a scowl._

After hours of sitting in a cramped car which John had grumpily called "The dingy jeep from hell" and Jack's wild driving around the town with his skills taking a downhill dive as his enthusiasm went up, Daniel was feeling very nauseous. He knew Jack was trying to distract him, could sense the older man's eyes on the back of his head when he was sitting in the infirmary, watching their Doctor Frasier sedate the former Hathor. And the more Daniel tried to brood, the louder Jack got, which annoyed the hell out of John since he was trying to get Dan to rest. And Sam and Teal'c were under some conspiracy, apparently, constantly pointing out things and then leaving Daniel to play tour guide. And Daniel caught the looks exchanged by all of his teammates. It seemed the colonel was very determined to not let Daniel have a chance to take time in his own office, to finally have a chance to sort everything out on his own. Because before Daniel could point out it was late and they might want to rest on the base instead, Jack was already suggesting they get a take-out dinner and eat it in Daniel's apartment.

While Jack argued with John about what to get, menus being tossed back and forth between Sam's patient explanations to Teal'c about what each food contained, Daniel and Dan were awkwardly conversing, making idle chat about the places and sites they'd both visited. But neither one of them wanted to truly compare notes and ended up just looking at Daniel's book collection. Leaving Dan to explore his shelves, Daniel plopped down on his couch, watching the others argue about sweet and sour pork and spicy chicken.

At some point, Daniel dozed off on the couch in the middle of the chaos and dreamed of glowing eyes, women whose faces changed from smiling to sneers, and hands that refused to leave him alone. When he woke up later with a soft gasp, he found an afghan was tucked around him, a throw pillow behind his head and Jack's piercing gaze on him again as the older man waited for him to wake up for dinner. Jack said nothing though, merely joking they were going to eat his share of the food, patting him on the back before going to the table and beginning an argument with John about who ordered the Kung Pao chicken.

Now it was nightfall, the brothers getting Daniel's bedroom with everyone else sacked in the living room. After a night of scanning his books, Daniel discreetly pulling one aside to slip to Dan when they left for their universe, he felt the nighttime lull to close his eyes, nightmares be damned. He nearly sagged with relief when everyone reluctantly bade each other good night, Sam settling for a spot on the other couch, Teal'c opting for the hallway leading to the door, Jack in the armchair, Daniel on the couch. But the moment he lay down and closed his aching eyes, the dreams came again. Hands touching him, voices calling him names, the feeling of being too young to stop what was happening to him, and the vicious cycle of watching a certain exotic pair of eyes close over and over again. They kept him startling awake, legs kicking out as he softly gasped and leaving him even more exhausted. His limbs felt like lead weights, dragging him down. Daniel thought he would have slept until the next afternoon.

"Sorry."

Jackson started when he saw his own face peering down at him, a pale version emerging out of the darkness. Dan O'Neill tilted his head at him, chin resting on the back of the couch.

"Did I wake you?" he whispered, brushing back a long bang as it kept dipping forward to his eyes.

Daniel ran the tip of his tongue nervously over his lower lip. "Um…not really…couldn't sleep."

"John's snoring is too loud." Dan grinned crookedly, nodding towards the partly shut door where strange sounds floated out.

Daniel winced. They sounded oddly like the ones Jack was making from the armchair across from him.

"Sorry, maybe we should have stayed on the base instead," Daniel offered with a sheepish grin. His counterpart shook his head.

"No. I wanted to see this place before we went back." Dan O'Neill surveyed the room, his eyes resting on the swords hanging from the walls, then to the filled bookshelves lit under moonlight shining through Daniel's living room window. A small smile tugged at his mouth.

"I wanted to see how the world can be when I go home."

Daniel nodded as the other laughed softly.

"God, that sounds so…weird."

"No…it doesn't," Daniel replied in a serious voice. "Not many people…really have that chance…to see the worst and return to something…better." He looked down at his lap, his pilled blanket suddenly fascinating.

Dan stared at Jackson and swore softly. Daniel blinked in surprise.

"I was right." O'Neill looked at his twin sadly. "You did have Lily."

Stiffening, Daniel swung his legs over to the floor. "I don't know what you're talking about. Every reality has a difference somewhere."

"Not here…not with her…"

Daniel sat there, staring at Jack dozing away happily in the armchair, head tilted back, mouth open, his bandaged hand crossed over his stomach, butterfly bandages on his forehead. He could see Sam on the other couch, stretched out, concealed under the spare blanket and Teal'c cross-legged in the hallway leading to his door. He shook his head, then covered his face with his hands.

"She's…is she still…around?" Dan asked in a small voice.

"No," Daniel replied in the same tone. "Car crash."

"Oh." His twin fell silent. He stared at the back of Daniel's head. Then, clearing his throat, he asked in a solemn voice.

"How long?"

Too long. Daniel stared at his friends between his fingers, the team oblivious to the conversation, but it comforted him to see them there, sprawled on his furniture.

"Daniel?" Dan made a face. "God that sounds so weird saying my own name!"

Jackson laughed, barely audible as if he was trying to keep quiet to not wake the others.

"Daniel?" the other said again.

"T-till…'til I was nine."

"Jesus," Dan breathed.

Daniel nodded. "It wasn't so bad…he left her and she sort of…mellowed out."

Dan snorted. "Yeah, right."

"She left for California after that," Daniel went on dully. "To be an actress."

"Well," Dan laughed bitterly, "she knew how to put up a front, that's for sure."

"Hadn't heard from her until the accident a few years ago," Daniel went on as if he hadn't heard him.

"So she never came back…looking for you…her golden child?" Dan grated out the words.

Daniel whipped up his head at that.

"She did…didn't she?" Dan O'Neill's eyes narrowed. "She tried to take you with her? Say she was the only one who really cared about you…despite your…flaws?"

Jackson bit his lip and turned back his head.

"You went with her, didn't you? When she drove up to you after school? You believed every word she said about how no one else would want you and you went with her. She threatened to make trouble with your new folks, huh?"

"Stop it."

"And she hadn't changed one bit. Am I right? She was still that same old goddamn-"

"Stop it!" Daniel hissed.

Jack grumbled out loud, mumbling some fragmented words. The two men froze, waiting for him to go back to sleep. When the colonel settled into deeper slumber, Daniel sighed.

"Sorry," Dan whispered.

"It's in the past…I got away, and they placed me with someone else, okay?" Daniel said in a flat voice.

"John stopped her from getting me."

Daniel blinked. "Oh."

"I wish it was the same for you, Daniel Jackson."

The archeologist closed his eyes briefly. He stared at the floor, noting his left sock had a hole in it. The two men said nothing, O'Neill resting his chin on the back of Daniel's couch, Jackson toeing his carpet. Then finally, in the softest of whispers, Daniel replied.

"Me too."

Heads bowed, the two said nothing again. Then, Daniel looked up and said shyly, "I know…it's not…something within our control…I mean…nothing ever seems to be, but I can't shake the feeling that…well..." Daniel shrugged, "Like I should be…apologizing."

"A…apologizing?"

Daniel flushed, grateful that the room was too dark for anyone to see. "Um…for us being able to get rid of Ra back then and—"

"And we couldn't," Dan finished with an understanding smile. "Yeah…I can see why I…I mean, you…would feel obliged to say something." He paused, scratching his chin with his thumb.

"It's weird…but I feel like apologizing, too."

"You?"

Dan shrugged as he saw Daniel turn around to him, puzzled.

"You know…for the Lilys of your life…for the Johns who weren't there to get you away from them…"

"Oh." Daniel faced front again. "That."

"I'm sorry you had to be alone all that time, Daniel." Dan didn't even question that. He saw the slump in Daniel's shoulders and just knew. He saw himself maybe thirty years younger, sitting on some bench as social workers argued about him like he was only a file on their desk.

"I'm not alone any more."

Dan blinked. Daniel turned around again, a sad smile curving his lips.

"Yeah…" Dan looked over to the sleeping Jack, and then his eyes drifted to the rest of the team. Dan nodded. "I can see that."

The colonel answered with a louder snore.

Both Daniels winced.

"But I have to admit," Daniel whispered, "I do…envy you at times…you have more years of good memories than I have. During the whole time, I wondered—"

"What you could have done to change your life," Dan finished.

Daniel nodded.

"But we can't change what happened, huh? Not the past. No matter how hard we wish, it can never be changed. Nothing can be changed," Dan murmured, looking back at the bedroom where John was.

"Only how you see the past."

The two men jumped at the sleepy voice. Looking at each other and realizing neither one of them said that, they turned simultaneously towards the only one it could have been.

Jack cracked one eye open, still scrunched up uncomfortably in the armchair. He turned his face, pressing against the armrest and eyed the two before groaning.

"Okay…either I had one way too many…or that alternate reality…thing…really occurred."

"You had one too many," both Daniels chorused. The older man sat up and glared at them.

"Stop that." Jack waved at them with his bandaged hand, the other scratching his stomach. "That's…that's…freaky, you know."

The two men looked at each other and grinned. They turned back and said in puzzled voices, "What?"

"I said quit it!" The colonel glowered at them as he settled into the seat. He rubbed his face with his hands and shook his head, muttering, "For crying out loud…"

Both Daniels, Jackson and O'Neill, sobered immediately as they realized their conversation had had an audience. Jack studied the two and rolled his eyes.

"What's all this talk about changing?" Jack sank deeper into the chair and made a face. He had to talk to Daniel someday about getting better furniture.

"Nothing," Dan murmured, looking down at his double.

Daniel just shrugged.

"Is this about…Grove Park in Chicago?" Jack's voice cut the silence like a sharp knife.

Daniel stilled. Dan just sighed, crossing his arms in front of him.

"Let's just say…it's really hard to decide who's the lucky one here," Dan O'Neill finally spoke.

Daniel didn't say anything at all, brooding.

"Uh…I think John stopped sawing wood." Dan fidgeted. He got up awkwardly, swaying a bit. He waved his hand when he saw the others standing up to help. "No, that's alright. I'm okay…just have to get used to…walking on my own two feet now." The young man didn't look at all upset with the idea. He took a deep breath and carefully made his way back towards the bedroom where his brother was.

"Night." Jack called out as the door quietly shut. He turned back to Daniel, studying him in the dark. "So..."

Daniel poked at his blanket, making a show of flipping it out. "Well, Jack. Didn't mean to wake you. Good night—"

"Hold it right there, buddy."

Daniel's shoulders slumped. "Jack, I really don't want to talk about it now."

"You didn't want to talk about it then, but we had a mission to concentrate on. I'll give you that, but mission's over, and the bad guys are dead. And I said when this was over, we were talking." Jack sat there waiting, his eyes pinning Daniel through the dim lighting.

The blanket twisting within Daniel's fist, the archeologist leaned back into the couch. "No matter what I say, Jack, what's done is done."

The couch gave as Jack sat next to him. "So then talking about it wouldn't do much, huh?"

Daniel nodded.

"But it'll make you feel better."

"No, it won't," Daniel said softly. "It'll only remind me of how I should have done something then, like Dan did. And then..."

"And then things would have been different?"

Head against the couch, Daniel stared at the ceiling. He could sense Jack watching him before he leaned back on the couch himself.

"I wondered that myself when we were back there," Jack confessed. Startled blue eyes blinked at him in the darkness.

"You?"

"I do think at times, Daniel."

The archeologist bit back a smile. "Oh. I didn't know about th—Ow." His left eye twitched as Jack swatted him with his own throw pillow.

"Just some things aren't worth thinking about to death." Jack stretched his neck, peering at Carter and Teal'c, making sure they were still asleep. "Remembering is fine, Daniel. But beating yourself over the head with the 'if onlys' and 'why' will only get you locked up in a padded room." Jack stopped, wanting to smack a hand on his forehead. Great going, mister.

"Nothing new..." Daniel joked weakly. He lowered his head. "I tried, Jack. I did. I tried to stop...thinking during this..."

"Mission?"

"Can it really be called just a mission?" Making a face, Daniel covered his eyes with the back of his arm.

"Daniel, no mission is ever just a mission." Jack counted down on his fingers, pretending to list them all. "I mean, how many just quote unquote standard missions have we had anyway? Let's see there was...no, had a bunch of flesh hungry natives—"

"Cannibals, Jack."

"Yeah, whatever. Oh, there was that purple flower planet. Kinda nice...no, wait. It made you all wheezy and Carter all loopy—"

"That was my allergies and the pollen had an intoxicating effect on women," Daniel corrected him, smiling briefly as he knew where was Jack going with all this. "I'm not saying you regard this as only a mission, but it just seems to me the term doesn't fit."

"So what would?" Jack folded his arms, wincing as his aching thumb protested and lowered them. He looked sideways at Daniel.

Daniel sat forward, chin on his clasped hands, staring at the window past Jack's chair. After a moment, he turned his face towards Jack, looking tired.

"A revelation."

Jack nodded. The word seemed to fit. He pursed his lips, reading the fine lines etched around Daniel's eyes and mouth. "Doesn't look like it was a very good revelation for you though."

"No...It wasn't."

The two men dropped into an uncomfortable silence. Jack poked at the carpet under his foot, noting Daniel was doing the same. Sighing to himself, Jack banged the back of his head on the couch, frustrated.

_So much for talking_, he groused.

"I don't like to realize I could have done something more," Daniel said abruptly.

Jack turned his head but didn't say anything, letting Daniel continue.

"I...He..." A heavy sigh escaped Daniel's lips. The archeologist shivered, arms around himself as he stared at the carpet below. "I could have left that day, Jack. Not turned back, maybe encountered someone who would have helped me, who might have believed me."

"Grove Park?"

Daniel nodded, closing his eyes. "She...I mean...I wasn't exactly a model child then, not really talkative and all, and I guess it frustrated most parents. They didn't want to deal with a grieving baby, just a happy one."

Jack frowned. "As much as I liked to think I was a super father, kids aren't happy all the time. That's the parents' job to make sure they are most of the time."

"If only..." Daniel's voice drifted away with a wistful tone. He shook his head, expression darkening. "When they finally placed me in another home, I know they tried...stuff to make sure I knew it wasn't my fault and that she was just sick in her mind, but..." Daniel rubbed at his cheek, almost feeling one of her stinging slaps. "She said she was my new mother, Jack. I thought..." He abruptly sat up higher. "This is stupid. That was almost a lifetime ago when I was a child. I don't know why I'm still bothered by—"

"Is she still alive?" Jack broke in. Daniel stared at him.

"No...Car accident. Why do you want to know?"

Jack glowered at his own socks. "Too bad," he muttered. _Otherwise, I would have a few words to say to that bitch._

"Jack?"

The colonel looked over to him and shrugged. "Nothing, just wondering if, you know, if she was still around to bother you any more."

"Even if she was alive, Jack," Daniel pointed out, "She would be in her mid fifties, maybe early sixties by now. Hardly the same monster in my closet."

Jack frowned at Daniel's words. "That bad, huh?"

"Not any more." Sitting back, Daniel blinked towards the ceiling. "And if I had had the courage to do something about it earlier, the worst stuff wouldn't have happened at all."

Turning his head, Jack gave Daniel's left knee a poke with his finger. "You were just a child then, Daniel. You were left under her care, and you trusted her. You shouldn't have had to worry about the person who should have been taking care of you."

"But if I'd only said something to someone," Daniel fretted. "Or left that car that day. But...God, I feel like an idiot!" Daniel got up from the couch and stumbled around Sam to get to the kitchen.

Jack watched Daniel circle around the kitchen, suddenly at a loss why he even went there in the first place. Jack's brow furrowed, mouth twitching as he thought how unfair it was for his friend to get a woman like that after losing his parents. It just wasn't right. Jack rose and went after him, giving Carter a wary glance to see if she was still asleep; otherwise, Daniel was going to clam up with an audience. He found Daniel with the fridge open, staring at the half jar of pickles and the leftover take-out sitting on the top shelf.

"Daniel." Jack pulled his friend back as the archeologist snagged two beers and gave Jack's bandaged hand a dubious look before helping him open the twist caps. Jack arched an eyebrow at the offered alcohol but took it as they both sat at the kitchen table. He grunted at the label. "Nice."

"I don't like drinking a lot of beer, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate what it can do," Daniel mumbled as he tipped the bottle back.

Jack blinked as the archeologist took a too long guzzle. He reached over and pulled the bottle back down onto the table. Daniel coughed, hand over mouth, swallowing the drink with a gulp.

"Forgetting is not the answer."

Daniel gave Jack a disbelieving look. The colonel shrugged.

"Look, I know what I said a few years ago to you, but there are some things you can't forget no matter how hard you try. You just have to...deal."

"Deal," repeated Daniel. He gave a small snort. "There's nothing to deal with, Jack. It's done with, over." Daniel pulled the bottle close to his mouth again.

"So why did I keep hear her name pop up, huh?"

Daniel's bottle lowered.

"Not too many Goa'ulds running around with that name, Daniel." Jack set his beer down, waiting. "At least, none we've met."

"Watching them...a different version of me and it just all came back to tell me how weak I was then, too scared to stop her from doing all those...bad things to me." Daniel tapped the bottle mouth with his index finger. "And then H—" Daniel abruptly took another sip, sputtering as he lowered the bottle a little too loudly. Jack darted his eyes back to the living room, but no one was stirring.

"They could have been twins, Jack."

The colonel turned back to Daniel.

"Her and...and Li—" Daniel took another gulp of beer. "The way they were...They could have been twins."

A chill went down Jack's spine, and he found he needed to take a long swig of beer himself.

Daniel blinked blearily, the alcohol numbing his brain. His head bobbed a bit before he sat higher to rouse himself. "And then...Sha—" He paused, something sad fleeting across his face and corrected himself. "Then Jolinar came by and it was like for once in my life, I could get back something good that was taken away from me."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about her sooner," Jack told him quietly.

Daniel shook his head. "I think...if I did know who the whole time was there, it would have been...worse. To have her so close and know she felt nothing for me because she wasn't the same woman who came by a hut one late evening and offered...offered the world..." The young man lowered his head to his hands, his voice muffled, breaking. His hands curled around strands of his own hair, forcing the locks into sharp spikes between his fingers. "God, Jack...I miss her so much...it physically hurts..."

Jack had no words to respond to that and ended up miserably swirling the beer within the amber bottle in his hands. He watched Daniel sit there, hunched over, his own beer forgotten, soft sounds of gulping heard in place of conversation. Jack scratched the bottle's raised surface around the logo, wishing he could think of something to say, something that would shed all this damn darkness so everything would be status quo again. But instead, all he could think of was how nice the glass would sound if he smashed the bottle across the room, whether for himself or for Daniel, it didn't matter.

"Remember that question I asked you?" Daniel asked softly, not looking up. "Back when they took the quantum mirror away?"

Jack nodded. "Uh huh."

Blue eyes went through him as Daniel raised his head. "Do you have an answer for me now? Why are we witnessing these alternate universes?"

"Things...things happen for a reason, Daniel."

"Oh? Then can you tell me the reason, Jack?"

Jack moistened his mouth, clearing his throat, acutely aware of the almost desperate plea in Daniel's gaze, a wild need for a quick fix to make everything better. God, Jack knew the feeling—from Iraq to every sunny day when he would keep hearing the same gunshot over and over again. Jack had always wanted someone to show up, say a whole crock full of bull at him so he could swallow it like some magic pill and all the pain would go away. But all Jack got was a silent, accusing wife, and a damn gun he cradled like a babe until a pair of uniforms dared to walk into his kid's room to speak with him. Jack looked back at Daniel and saw the same yearning for a simple answer to everything. Before he could regret it, even argue with himself that life was never that simple, he said quietly, "To remind us things could have been a lot worse."

Daniel stared at him.

"Daniel, their world...that could have been us." Jack leaned back in his seat, waiting for Daniel's reaction.

"A lot...worse?"

Nodding, Jack said nothing else.

When Daniel lowered his head again, Jack's shoulders slumped. He knew the answer was lame, feeble, but it was all he could think of, the only reason he could figure why the powers that be screwed them over so badly, then smacked a different universe in their faces and taunted them with what ifs.

"That could have been us," whispered Daniel. He didn't look up, hand to his forehead as he massaged his temples, wincing as fingertips felt the puckered scars of the puncture marks and lowered his hands. "Sha're...she was married, Jack. Had children, living on Abydos until she watched her family destroyed." Daniel shook his head sadly, his hand now snaking over to grab the neck of his beer bottle. "Can you imagine what it must be like...to lose your family before your eyes? Just like that?" Voice lowering to barely a whisper, Daniel softly said, "You wouldn't want to live because you're all alone."

"Then Jolinar came."

Daniel nodded. "Sha're hid there inside because she already felt...dead." His brow furrowed, face scrunching up as grief cracked through for one brief moment before he shuddered, reining it back in.

"I think I know how she feels."

_I bet you do_, Jack thought. "But that wasn't your wife, Daniel. The Sha're I knew...she would have fought along with Jolinar every step of the way and been there for all of that."

"She was grieving, Jack," Daniel said in a tight voice. "Not everyone can do that. It's just too hard after losing so much."

"And that's the point." Jack smiled as Daniel looked up with wide eyes. "Your Sha're wouldn't have hid, Daniel. She was trapped in Amonet for so long, and in the end, she still came through to reach you."

Daniel stared at Jack for a long time, mouth slightly open. He closed his mouth, lower lip sticking out as he thought about it and then slowly nodded his head once.

"You're right. Sha're would have fought." Absently rubbing his arm with one hand, Daniel stared blankly at his beer. "God, could you imagine? This world under Ra's control? He was like...I think he really believed he was a god at some point. He was ruthless, Jack. This world would have crumbled."

"But we got him before he could touch this planet again," Jack murmured. "And we got him off that planet." He raised his beer. "I say that makes this a pretty good day, Danny boy."

Daniel blinked at the nickname. He looked at Jack, then turned towards the direction of the bedroom and slowly smiled. "Hear, hear." He raised his bottle and clinked it against Jack's. Together, they took a long drink in toast.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

_The gleam in the youth's eyes was nothing like the boy he knew. Jack stood there, gun wavering, wincing as he watched Daniel kneel, frozen under the grip of Klorel's ribbon device._

_"O'Neill! You must hurry!" Teal'c was shouting for him to shoot, and Jack knew if Daniel could speak, he might scream for him to do the same._

_"Skaara!" he shouted to the young man, but Klorel didn't turn, sneering down at Daniel as the archeologist began to shake with pain. "Don't!" Jack warned again. Look at me, he wanted to yell. Look at me, and fight him!_

_But Skaara didn't look, and Jack could have sworn he heard the ribbon device increase in pitch. _

_So he fired. Once. Twice, spinning Skaara/Klorel away from Daniel, who fell in a lifeless heap on the floor. Klorel looked at O'Neill as if saying "Why?" before he dropped to the ground. _

With a start, Jack jerked awake, heart hammering with the memory. He kept telling himself Skaara was alive here, still waiting for rescue, that what had happened back in the other reality was not a premonition. He tried to raise his hand to wipe the sweat off his face when he heard a murmur. Looking down, he saw the top of Daniel's head balanced precariously on his shoulder.

Grimacing, Jack remembered they were going to knock off a few beers after they'd settled on the couch, figuring they were both too keyed up to sleep. And just as Jack had suspected, Daniel dozed off, head tilted back on the couch, his third bottle still unopened in his limp hands. So Jack tugged the afghan up to Daniel's chin, plucked the beer out of his fingers and finished it for him. Somewhere down the road, Jack fell asleep too, and Daniel slid sideways onto him.

"Boy, if only I had a camera."

Jack glared at Carter who was sitting up on the other couch, rubbing her eyes with a wicked grin. She looked pointedly at Daniel, the archeologist oblivious to the attention as he slept.

"Why?" Jack grumbled as he moved Daniel's hand under the blanket, noting it was cold.

"Blackmail material," Carter quipped, chuckling as her CO shot her a smothering glare.

"You wouldn't."

Carter only waggled her eyebrows. She turned her head, nodding as Teal'c rose to his feet. The two stood there in front of the couch.

Jack would have sat up higher indignantly if Daniel hadn't suddenly tensed, a nightmare rapping at his subconscious. The young man's hands curled around the blanket, and Daniel's head began to go left and right, shaking.

Immediately, Jack adjusted his position so his arm could go over Daniel's shoulders, giving him a shake. The archeologist didn't wake but somehow knew the touch was safe and settled back into sleep, the lines on his forehead smoothing out.

"Is he okay?"

Jack looked up at Carter and shrugged. He carefully eased Daniel up again, groaning as the man slid back sideways, knocking his head against the bony corner of Jack's shoulder. "Great, I hope he doesn't drool. I happen to like this shirt." He glanced up, frowning when he saw Carter and Teal'c still looked worried. "What?"

"Uh...we sort of...heard you before," Carter hedged. When Jack tensed, she hastened to say, "Not all of it. I was drifting in and out of sleep so I didn't...Is he going to be okay?"

"He's Daniel," Jack would only say. "What do you think?"

"Daniel Jackson will be fine," Teal'c announced.

Jack nodded. "He'll bounce back as usual. Just give him a rock—"

"Artifact, sir," Carter corrected him innocently.

Jack shot her a scowl that said "Et tu?" and went on "Like I said, give him some stuff to translate, and he'll be fine. We just gotta be sure he doesn't forget to—"

"Eat," Carter jumped in.

"Or rest," Teal'c finished.

Jack grinned. Oh yeah, Daniel would be fine. In fact, they would _all _be okay. It was the one thing he wouldn't trade in any universe: his team and the bonds holding them together through all this, knowing even when separated, they'd be okay with the others still out there looking.

Sighing, Carter plopped down on the armchair Jack had been sleeping in before. "It's really unbelievable how everything turned out, sir."

"Indeed." Agreeing, Teal'c only nodded, standing over by the couch. Jack bit back a grin, knowing the Jaffa had unconsciously set himself close by in case Daniel needed him.

"I mean, look at the probabilities we've encountered so far." She wiggled her hand at Jack, folding down each finger as she went. "We had me engaged to you, and Daniel had never been in the Stargate program, Teal'c still a First Prime to Apophis, then me married and widowed, Teal'c still a First Prime to Apophis. The possible combinations of factors are enormous."

Jack's mouth went dry, and he looked down at the top of Daniel's head again. "They are?"

Nodding, she gestured towards the shut bedroom door. "That was one possibility you never considered, one I never thought possible for myself either." She made a face. "Yet, everything sort of balanced to our reality the moment we intervened and realigned the factors to produce the same conclusion."

Jack made a face. "Carter, I have three, no...make that four beers in my system right now. Can you please speak in English?"

"The moment we helped them, they were able to share the same fate as us."

Gawking at Teal'c, Jack pointed at Carter. "You understood what she said?"

Teal'c bowed his head towards Sam, a hint of a smile. "No, I did not, but it is something I believe."

Grinning, Carter took pity on the colonel's disbelieving expression. "I sort of already explained it to Teal'c a few times."

Jack grunted. "So everything turned out the same...sort of...No Goa'ulds."

"And no Sha're," she added softly, looking at Daniel sadly.

"He'll be okay with it," Jack interrupted. Eventually. "We'll make sure, right?" He leaned back on the sofa, satisfied when he saw the others nodding seriously. Giving Daniel's head a pat, Jack yawned. "Damn, I'm almost afraid to see what other versions are out there."

"Perhaps you can inquire of Lieutenant Booker about that, O'Neill."

Jack saw Carter waving her hand frantically at Teal'c. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why should I ask Lieutenant Booker?"

Teal'c arched an eyebrow at Carter's maniacally waving gestures as he responded, "Because he is in charge of the betting for the list."

"List? What list?"

Wincing at the colonel's chilly tone, Carter sheepishly mumbled "Uh...the one they made to see what combinations we'll get in the next alternate reality if this happens again."

"Carter..." Jack folded his arms, trying to look stern but failing with Daniel slumped against his shoulder, dozing away unaware. "What combinations are those?"

Teal'c looked like he was going to spit as if the idea was odd. "There was one that suggested Major Carter and I were...mates."

"What?" Jack sat up straighter, pushing Daniel gently away so he wouldn't wake him.

Flushing, Carter scratched her cheek. "Uh...yeah, although there was also one for Janet and Daniel."

Sputtering, Jack wanted to say something, only grabbing the beer bottle instead and emptying it in one gulp. He glared suspiciously at the pair. "All this betting is on who's jumping in the sack in other realities?"

"Well, not really, sir," Carter started to say, ducking her head sheepishly under the colonel's scowl and muttered, "Yes, sir."

"What else was there?"

"You were matched with Doctor Frasier, O'Neill."

"M-me? Doc? W-what?"

"Teal'c, you're forgetting the one where he's paired off with Paula down at X-Rays."

Jack was beginning to feel like he was on a merry-go-round. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, then there was Daniel matched up with me, and one where he's matched up with Joy down at Records."

Lowering his head in his hands, Jack groaned.

"And then there was you and Daniel—"

Jack's head shot up. "_What_?"

Something in the bedroom crashed.

"Having wives off base..." Sam trailed off, tilting her head towards the back.

Spinning around on his seat, Jack narrowed his eyes as he saw the bedroom door was open a crack. He raised an eyebrow at Teal'c, the Jaffa raising one in response. They could hear the voices unsuccessfully trying to keep quiet.

"I don't believe it..."

"Will you calm down, John? What did you think they were saying?"

"Do you believe those people out there? I can't—"

"Calm down. Will you watch where you're stepping? What did you think they were saying?"

Dead silence.

Jack gave a look to Carter, who shrugged. They started when Dan's voice came loud enough to hear without straining.

"Oh God! I can't believe you would think...Oh...I think I'm going to get sick...You!"

"What? They were saying stuff and suddenly our names came up and—"

"Hello? We're brothers! Where the hell did you get such a lame-brained—"

"_Me_? I didn't say anything!"

"Well, neither did they, John!"

Jack winced as he heard another crash.

"Oh, now look what you did! Do you realized that was a very rare Peruvian—"

"Sh! They'll hear us!"

"Then you shouldn't have been screaming!"

"_I_ was screaming? You were—"

Daniel stirred at the next crashing sound. "What?" He looked left and right, rubbing his eyes with a knuckle. "What time is it?"

"Argh! You broke another—Just turn on a goddamn light!"

"Then they'll know we're listening in—"

"Well if they didn't know before, they know now, John!"

Sam carefully pushed Daniel back down on the couch. "It's after four, Daniel. Go back to sleep."

Jack winced as he heard crunching pottery sounds in the other room, Daniel raising his head again with a bit of concern. He gave Daniel a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "Uh...nothing important, Daniel. Why don't you catch some shut-eye?"

Blinking rapidly, Daniel peered sleepily up at Jack, yawning. "I thought I heard—"

"Just the wind."

"The wind? But I thought I heard glass."

Jack nodded towards the door. Teal'c walked to the bedroom, opened the door, gave the occupants a glare which shut the brothers up, then promptly shut the door firmly to block the noise. Carter pulled at the blanket, and Daniel looked at her with a sleepy smile.

"Hey, Sam."

Carter chuckled, brushing her hand against his fringe. "Night, Daniel. Get some sleep."

Brow furrowed, Daniel didn't question, too tired to do anything except mumble his thanks as Jack steered his legs up to extend on the couch, giving one last yawn before shuffling deeper into the bedding and falling right back to sleep.

The rest of the team watched for a moment, until Daniel turned on his other side, mumbling some more before quieting.

Jack turned to Teal'c with a grimace. "How bad was it?"

The Jaffa merely pursed his lips.

Head drooping, Jack sighed heavily. "Damn. This is going to cost us, isn't it?"

"It was your idea to have them stay over here, sir," Carter pointed out mildly, hurrying back to her sleeping spot when Jack's head whipped back again.

Grumbling, Jack stomped over to where he was sacked out before, yanking out the blanket wadded behind the cushion. As he shot a scowl over to the shut bedroom, his frown faded, realizing the two had sounded, while arguing, at ease with each other and definitely not alone. Jack's gaze wandered to Daniel, sleeping with his back towards Jack, looking small as he curled under the blanket. Jack looked up towards the ceiling.

_He's not alone either_, he growled to whoever might be listening, scanning the room for the rest of his team.

Satisfied he'd made that clear to the powers that be, Jack settled back down in the armchair, hands twitching in discomfort. He kept one ear open to make sure no demons were knocking in anyone's sleep, and as he kept vigil, drifted back to sleep himself.

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

SG1SG1SG1

Rows of soldiers paused as they moved the injured through the portal. Some blinked in fascination as two pairs of twins came up to the middle of where the mirror wall would have been.

Dan stared back at his double. "So."

Smiling wanly, as if unsure of what to say, Daniel echoed, "So."

"Are they going to keep doing this all day?" Jack complained as he rocked on his heels, fully aware of the amused looks from both sides of the realities gathering around the front of the mirrored wall.

"Well, we could just start tossing people through the mirror right now," Kawalsky suggested. He and Ferretti wiggled their hands making as if they were going to grab Dan to do just that. He threw up his hands when both Jack and John O'Neill glared at him. "Kidding. Kidding. You know I wouldn't do that to him, Cap."

"Stop talking as if I wasn't here," Dan grumbled over his shoulder before turning back to Daniel. He shrugged sheepishly at Jackson. "Sammy said she was going to get some guards for this place. Make sure no one else goes through. At least...no one...unfriendly."

"Same here," Daniel murmured as he caught movements of people walking through the empty space where the portal was. Pretty soon, both realities would be back where they belonged, on their own sides. Daniel shifted from one foot to another, taking a deep breath before he pulled out a small pocket sized bound book. "Uh...thought maybe you would like something...you know..."

Dan placed his hands on the book, staring at the cover. "Are you sure? I mean, I recognize this. This was Dad's...our dads' book on temple recreations."

Daniel gave a weak smile. "I found quite a few of his books. But I think...you should at least have one with you."

Dan was at a loss for words. "I..." He tucked the book carefully in his jacket pocket and extended his hand, Daniel accepting it easily. They stared at each other.

"You going to be okay?" Daniel asked. Dan tilted his head, not understanding the question. "Um...we couldn't get the maps, and I know there are people you want to find."

John nodded, eyes dulling before they drifted to his brother's pensive expression. "We have coordinates you guys gave us to start with. Places Ra's rule extended to. They're pretty good chances for us finding them. He may have sent them there." John brightened as Dan nodded in agreement. "We'll find them."

Smiling briefly, Daniel stuck his hands in his pockets. "I...you know...I really don't know what to say," Daniel fumbled for the words, laughing nervously.

"I know. It's weird, right? Saying goodbye to your own face." Dan chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. He blinked when he saw Daniel do the same. The two men grinned.

"How about, uh...see you later?" John suggested in a light voice, leaning over to study the two. He grinned at Dan's chuckle.

"What?" Jack could be heard, outraged as he tried to both herd the donated equipment to the other side and eavesdrop at the same time. "You mean I gotta see that mug again some day?"

"And what's wrong with this mug?" John shouted back, not noticing the two Daniels wincing at the volume.

"They would be the only ones who can't get along with themselves," Dan muttered and Daniel chuckled. Sobering, Dan looked at his counterpart. "There's a lot of things I envy you for...Doctor Daniel Jackson...but don't be insulted when I say they're not enough for me to want to trade places with you."

Daniel smiled shyly. "I was about to say the same thing."

Just then, Daniel caught a glimpse of the alternate Janet Frasier, subdued, being helped across the portal border to her own reality. He looked at Dan, who only gave her a quick glance before hastily turning away.

"She's a victim, too, you know."

"I know. Sammy knows through Jol. She'll get help," Dan murmured. "It's just...going to take some getting used to."

Daniel remembered flinching when their Doctor Frasier came by to check on his eyesight once more when he arrived back on base. "I understand," he whispered. "But as long as you remember it wasn't her, and it was the Goa'uld inside her, then...it'll be okay."

Dan turned his head back to the alternate Frasier, sitting on a pile of ruined statues under careful guard. He looked at Daniel and solemnly nodded.

"Look, I can't keep holding the door forever!" Sam Hansen yelled, her voice ringing in both sides of the chamber. Dan and John turned to see a very impatient commander standing at the border of the portal. "We have to get back, assess the damage and start contingency plans for reconstruction and retrieval. Move it!"

"I told you," John muttered to both Dan and Daniel. "She doesn't like me."

"Don't feel so bad," Daniel whispered back. "She doesn't seem to like Jack either." Dan snickered as he caught the dirty look Jack was giving his friend, having overheard.

Chuckling, John clasped Daniel on the shoulder. "It was nice to have met you...Doctor Jackson." He smiled warmly at the man who wore his brother's face.

"Call him Daniel," Dan whispered.

"Call me Daniel," Daniel said at the same time.

The two men started and smiled at each other.

"Aw, what the hell," Dan sighed. He reached out and abruptly hooked the back of Daniel's neck and pulled him forward, sending the startled archeologist stumbling into their reality. Before Daniel could ask why, Dan wrapped his arms around him, engulfing him in a hug.

"Now that looks really weird," Jack muttered, but his eyes softened as he saw Dan patting Daniel on the back. He could hear every word from where he was and judging by John's expression, so could he.

"Sorry," Dan whispered before pulling away. "It looked like you needed it."

Daniel, mouth open, blinked at his counterpart before he mutely nodded. Then, he smiled once more. "You won," he said softly. "You beat him."

"_We_ beat him," John reminded him, lightly punching his brother's twin. He then abruptly imitated Dan's gesture and ruffled Daniel's hair. The young man yelped, peering over to Dan, utterly bewildered.

Dan chuckled. "Hey, better you than—"

"O'Neill!" Hansen bellowed, getting thoroughly incensed.

"What?" Jack, John and Dan shouted back.

Hansen threw up her hands, tossing a "How do you put up with this?" look to Carter before snarling, "The annoying one!"

Dan grinned broadly. "Oh, she was definitely talking to you." He pointed to John and snickered. Daniel bit back a smile.

John pretended to growl. "Listen you..."

"O'Neill!"

Jack winced. "And they said I was loud." He glanced over to Carter with a smirk. "Who knew you could be so bossy?"

Rolling her eyes, Sam made no comment as she scanned the empty space of the portal. She lowered the device and met her double's eyes. The commander studied her for a moment and smiled wanly.

"See you around...Carter."

"Commander." Sam straightened, snapped her fingers and hopped over to the other reality.

"God damn it, Carter!" Jack wasn't happy. He shot a glare at his major, getting one in return from the commander.

"Forgot something." Sam pulled out a small box. Rattling it, she handed it to Hansen, who looked at it warily.

"The bracelets," Daniel explained. "We kept a few for ourselves. Thought you might want some for...um..."

"Dropping by and saying yoo hoo?" John drawled.

"Hey! I was going to say that!" Jack complained.

"You snooze, you lose, Colonel."

Grumbling, Jack waved Carter to come back. "Everything's through, kids."

Hansen nodded and paused. She made a face and growled. "I think someone wants to say something as well. Hang on."

Her eyes flashed a brief white light, and her harsh scowl gentled to a smile. Suddenly, Sammy's face smoothed out as she found who she was looking for, her eyes staying on Daniel.

"Jolinar," Daniel murmured. The Tok'ra tipped her head slightly.

"I wish you safety and well wishes, Dan-yel Jackson. And to you all as well. We the Tok'ra and the Tau'ri are most grateful. Should you ever require our assistance, you need only ask."

Jack arched an eyebrow. "Now there's something you don't hear from a Tok'ra every day," he quipped over his shoulder to the rest in the back.

Jolinar's eyes drifted back over to Daniel. Her smile was sad.

"Farewell, Dan-yel. I wish someone else was here to bid you the same."

Daniel swallowed. He managed a sad smile. "She already did. Thank you."

Jolinar reached forward and touched his cheek. "Good-bye. Stay well, our new friend." She pulled back and her eyes dulled, returning Sammy Hansen to the surface.

"Damn it!" the commander exploded. "This gives me the creeps!" She shot her men a glare, daring anyone to comment. Seeing none would, she nodded to Jack and the others and stepped away from the portal space.

A few seconds later, the wall came back up, the scene of the other reality still visible.

"Let's go home, kids," Jack murmured to his team, turning to go.

"Jack...wait."

Stopping at Daniel's soft request, Jack swiveled around again and froze at the image before him.

Standing by the active Stargate, John, Kawalsky, and a few others were saluting sharply to the mirror. The generals stood beside them, hands clasped behind their backs, before slowly pulling their hands out and saluting as well. To them. Dan and Jolinar stood there solemnly, their eyes providing the same respect.

Jack stared at the scene, faces like his own, one who was dead here, and felt an odd lump sitting in the back of his throat. His eyes wandered to Hansen, who was steadily looking at him. She lifted her hand.

And saluted.

"Attention," Jack said softly. He and Carter straightened and did the same, the soldiers behind them snapping to attention in unison.

They stood there, both realities gazing back at each other, at the possibilities neither could have ever imagined existed, hands straight, shoulders back.

Jack finally lowered his hand. He saw Hansen murmur something to the soldier standing on the DHD platform. "Anderson," he called out over his shoulder.

Two soldiers, in both realities, stepped down from the platform. The wall wavered, then turned smoky until it solidified back to their own reflections.

"Bye," Daniel whispered to his own image. He felt Jack clasp him on the shoulder. He looked up.

Jack's unspoken question hung between them, concern in the colonel's face that looked both like John O'Neill's and Jack's.

"I'm okay," the archeologist murmured and saw the dark eyes lighten.

Another clap of the shoulder and Jack motioned to the DHD.

"Dial us home, Daniel."

Daniel turned away from the mirror, not looking back and practically jogged to the DHD. Knowing the symbols by heart, Daniel tapped the first one. When the chevron engaged, he smiled.


	53. Epilogue :The End or The Beginning?

**EPILOGUE**

_Three months later..._

John walked into the freshly painted observation room, nodding his approval. It looked almost like the one in the other SGC. Someone had a very good memory. He frowned though, when he saw the lights were left on, and wondered who was wasting the rationed energy supply.

With the Asgards gone with only a promise of a visit in another few months, everyone had to create their own resources again, and it had been slow going. Waste wasn't productive to their reconstruction._ Although_, he thought, looking down at the worn jumpsuit he'd never bothered giving back to his counterpart, _some new threads right now would be nice._ John picked absently at the thread where a button for his pocket used to be. As he reached for the light switch, he stopped, seeing the thin figure almost hidden behind the flags by the window. He sighed, exasperated.

"What are you doing up?" John walked over to Dan and leaned against the glass, eyeing his brother. He frowned when he saw his younger brother hadn't bothered to bring his jacket or his cane with him, merely buttoning up his several layers of shirts again. "I was going to meet you down in our quarters."

"Wanted to see this," his younger brother murmured, waving a still too thin hand towards the window and the Stargate below it.

John gave the towering ring a quick appraisal. "Yeah, it looks pretty good right now. Siler's performing miracles getting it running smoothly for us again."

"I wasn't talking about that."

John waited patiently.

Dan leaned forward, pressing his forehead to the glass. "Do you remember how I was when I first saw this?"

A smile twitched John's lips. "Yeah."

"I was totally speechless. I thought it was the most wondrous thing in the world. I think I even called it...beautiful."

The smile faded as John began to understand.

Dan raised his head and laughed softly. "What a double edged sword it was, huh?"

"Most things in life are, Mutt."

Considering the large stone ring below, Dan mused out loud. "I don't know whether I'm glad to have seen this or not."

John darkened. "I'm not."

Sighing, Dan hobbled away from the window, shaking his head exasperated when he felt John take him by the elbow.

"I'm okay, John."

"You know what the docs say. Use the cane until you get stronger. And you need sleep. Regular sleep."

Nodding absently, Dan eased himself down into the chair John steered him to. "Say, I saw the guards coming through the Stargate before. Were they from reconn?"

Shifting uneasily, John didn't meet his brother's eyes. "I...uh...think so."

"Joohn..."

"Oh for Pete's sake. No, they weren't, okay?" Sticking his hands in his pockets, John mumbled, "They were from that mirror planet."

Dan sat up straighter. "Really?" He swiveled the chair. It squeaked as it turned back towards the window. "What for? Was it...did we get a message from...them?"

"Yeah." John stood there, debating it and gave up. "Ah hell." He slipped his hand under his jacket and pulled out a thinly wrapped package and an envelope. He dropped them on Dan's lap.

Eyebrow quirking upward, Dan took the envelope in his hands. "What the—?"

"Found them under the rubble of our house while I was there assessing the damage. They were old but looked good anyway," John muttered, acting as if it was no big deal. "We didn't have any labs up here yet, but I figured they could do something with their fancy machines there, so I sent them with our last message packet to them and—" He stopped, hearing Dan suck in his breath. Seeing his brother pull out what was in the envelope, hands stilling over what he held, John smiled, placing a hand on top of his brother's head.

Dan gazed down at the photos in his hands—the photo from Egypt and the one from Charlie's fifth birthday. He smiled sadly, thumb brushing against the glossy photo surface.

"We lost everything in that sub, John." Dan said softly, voice breaking.

Crouching down, John gave Dan's knee a brief squeeze. "Not everything," he reminded Dan in a hoarse voice. He nodded towards the package itself. "Colonel thought you might like this as well. Said he made a copy for you, too."

"Too?" Dan echoed as he unwrapped the package. He paused, fingers drifting over the small book. "Oh God."

John smiled again. "Apparently, your twin didn't have this, and he thought maybe you would like to start up your collection again."

"I was wrong."

Peering at the distant gaze on Dan's face, the hands stroking the item on his lap, John gave him a cautious poke on the shoulder. "Dan?"

Dan lifted his head and smiled. "He wasn't alone after all. He was right. He's not alone anymore."

Nodding, John sat there, staring at the book on Dan's lap. He gruffly pulled his brother closer, hooking an arm around the light colored head and gently pulling it towards him. He hugged him briefly and felt thin arms returning the embrace.

"Happy birthday, Danny."

Dan smiled against his shoulder. "Thank you."

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Cautiously looking at the man sitting on his living room sofa from over the rim of his beer glass, Jack chewed his lower lip thoughtfully, debating whether he should or not.

"Jack, are you going to move or what?"

Grinning, hearing the impatient tone in Daniel's voice, Jack knew the archeologist must have already thought out his next move on the board. Looking up, he was surprised to see the living room had emptied.

"Where did everyone go?" Jack asked, eyeing the remaining slices of birthday cake on the table. He casually got up, knowing it would irritate the hell out of Daniel and sauntered over to take another piece. He was going to have to ask Fraiser where she'd gotten it from. Even Teal'c, who normally didn't have a sweet tooth, had had two slices, along with Daniel. The first one they smeared on his face didn't count.

Jack's smile grew.

"Sam left right after you moved your knight, remember?" Daniel said in a mild scolding tone. He rolled up the sleeves of his cable sweater, eyeing the chessboard with a contemplative gaze. He absently waved a hand around the living room, now empty of the colorful wrapping paper and people that had filled the place hours before. "After she cleaned up the place."

"Oh yeah," the colonel drawled. "Must thank her for that. She has the makings of a good housemaid."

Daniel snorted. "Are you going to move or what?"

"Why, Doctor Jackson, do I detect a bit of...impatience in your voice?" Jack leaned on the table, slowly taking a forkful of cake into his mouth, pretending to pick the crumbs off his button down shirt. He took another bite, ignoring Daniel's sigh. Muffled, the amusement was audible anyway. "Had this been poker, I would have thought you had a full house or something." He chewed the treat in his mouth with exaggerated care, enjoying the sight of Daniel practically bouncing in his seat, eager to make his next move on the chessboard. Jack gestured towards the cake. "Want?"

Daniel shook his head, paused, then finally nodded slowly. Jack couldn't stop his grin from getting wider and wider. Daniel looked like a kid, fidgeting as he wondered how rude it would be to ask for another piece. Maybe because it was coffee flavored, he mused, remembering Daniel's surprise when he opened the door to let him in. The archeologist was under the assumption they were having a quiet dinner and a chess game, only to be jumped by a dozen friends in the living room. Jack choked back a laugh as he recalled Daniel yelping when Teal'c came up from behind, booming "Surprise" after everyone else had said it, missing his cue. Daniel practically leaped a few inches into the air.

"What's so funny?" Daniel asked suspiciously as he walked over to the table and took the last piece. Popping a stray broken chunk of cake in his mouth, he tried to hide the act of cleaning his finger of the mocha cream.

Jack smirked. "Want to lick the plate?"

Grimacing, Daniel popped the finger out of his mouth and dropped his hand.

Jack's smile faded. He supposed Daniel had rarely had moments like these. Hell, maybe never, knowing the private scientist. And judging by what he did know about Lily Spencer from Daniel and what he'd found out on his own, Daniel hadn't been very motivated to seek out permanent bonds with every family he'd been passed around to.

"What's the matter?" Daniel darted a look over to Jack, reading the dark mood brooding behind brown eyes. Daniel cautiously leaned closer, peering at Jack's face. "Jack?"

Eyeing him up and down, Jack sighed. Putting the plate down, he fumbled around the napkins until he pulled out the hidden thin square box wrapped simply with brown postal paper and tape. "Here," he said gruffly. "Happy birthday." Jack plopped it into Daniel's hand, trading the archeologist's cake for it.

Daniel stared down at the package and blinked. "Uh...excuse me?"

"Birthday? You know...day you get presents?" Jack snorted through his nose. "You're supposed to get a year older and wiser, not dumber!"

"Uh...correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't I get something from you already?" Making a face, Daniel nodded towards the box tucked behind the armchair, the wrapping paper folded neatly with the rest. He rolled his eyes, remembering how heavy it had felt before opening it and realizing why. "I thought the rock was it."

"You mean Lucy?" Jack grinned. "Nah. Figured your first pet rock needed a mate now. Some day, they'll have pebbles together."

"Oh...joy." Rotating the package, Daniel gave it a cautious shake.

"Hey, hey! Watch it! That could be an artifact or something!" Jack protested. He frowned at Daniel's disbelieving look. "What? It could happen!"

"You, Colonel Jack O'Neill, would go out there and buy me an artifact at the risk of me _babbling_," Daniel waved two fingers in the air to quote himself, "about it?"

Jack grinned crookedly, leaning against his table. He grabbed a beer bottle and twisted open the beverage as he drawled, "Yeah, sure. I'm a great connoisseur of rocks."

Daniel opened his mouth, then shook his head. "I'm not going to even try."

Chuckling, Jack shrugged one shoulder. "Figured maybe...wasn't sure if they'd find it in time and well...when they did, the owners gave me a hard time about it and...ah hell! Will you just open it?" He waved his bottle at the package Daniel was still studying in his hands.

Daniel shrugged, a small smile playing on his lips as he plopped down in the armchair, giving the package one more shake before he gingerly peeled back the first cellophane tape.

Jack rolled his eyes. "For crying out loud, Daniel! It ain't going to blow up or disintegrate or anything!"

"Just want to open it nice and neat," Daniel muttered as he slowly peeled off the next piece of tape, making Jack regret sealing the damn thing so securely.

"Hurry it up, will you? I'm aging here!"

Daniel stopped mid-peel, his thumb and index finger still holding onto the tape, and broke into a rare grin, a mischievous twinkle in his light colored eyes. "Oh, don't go blaming me for that!"

"Daniel!"

Chuckling softly, not catching the matching smile on Jack's face as the colonel saw his amusement, Daniel tore off the last piece of tape, parting the halves of brown paper.

It was a book.

Eyebrow arching above the rim of his glasses, Daniel frowned, seeing the plain looking dark blue cover. A book? He looked up at Jack, but the man was taking a sip of his beer, his face concealed behind the amber bottle. Shrugging, Daniel ran his hand across the scratchy surface, the feel of crushed powder under his palms tickling his memory. He'd felt this surface before somewhere...

Daniel stopped.

"Jack..." he murmured, pulling his hand away, unsure.

The colonel smiled, his eyes a soft caramel color as he nodded towards the package. "Go on...take it out." He tilted the beer back, one eye hidden behind the bottle once more, the other peering at him, waiting.

With a pair of shaky hands, Daniel cradled the thin volume, simple, plain, not the fanciest of bindings, no gilded edges on the pages, the sheets not perfectly cut, but Daniel couldn't tear his eyes away from it. Thinking maybe he was mistaken, that it couldn't possibly be, Daniel swallowed, turning the book on its side and nearly dropped the volume.

1970.

Etched in gold, near the bottom, it bore the year of its publishing date. Daniel ran his index finger over the numbers, every single digit. He nervously ran his tongue over his lips as he opened the cover, the smell of fresh ink greeting him as the first page curled under his hand.

Egyptian Mysticism.

"Oh God..." Daniel whispered softly, unable to say anything more. He scanned the pages greedily, never having seen the entire text, only having gotten a glimpse of the book before she took it from him the very next day after he'd received the books from the estate. He'd had only enough time to feel the scratchy surface of the book, rubbing against his fingertips before it left his grasp for hers.

"I liked that inscription inside," Jack suddenly spoke, his tone quiet and somber.

At the mention, Daniel's eyes wandered to the first page again, the words blurring, watery, before they focused once more.

_To those who sit beside me. My greatest treasures._

"He wrote this while keeping me company when I was sick," Daniel whispered hoarsely. "He read it out loud to us, but I didn't understand at the time...if only..." He looked up, mouth slightly open. "I...I...how?"

Jack shrugged, shifting in his seat. "Made a few calls." _A dozen actually. Those freaking people moved more times than Maybourne changes agendas._ He furrowed his brow as he hesitantly added, "Uh...it's not the original as you can tell. They wouldn't part with it no matter what, but they finally let me make some copies, including the handwriting in the margin and got someone to figure out that funny cover they used, but it isn't the same original one, I know and—"

"It's perfect," Daniel interrupted, closing the book, clasping his hands over it as he spoke. "It's just...just perfect." He peered over his glasses at Jack.

"You're welcome, Daniel," Jack replied to the shining gratitude with a soft smile. He knew Daniel wanted to say a lot more, but old habits died hard, and the scientist didn't know how. He coughed, giving Daniel a chance to recover and casually tipped his bottle back, emptying the last of the beer. He looked around his drink, watching as Daniel carefully wrapped the book back in its paper.

"Jack...I..."

"You know," Jack said abruptly in a loud voice, strolling casually over to his seat on the sofa again before sitting down. Daniel stopped, staring at Jack. "I bet," the colonel grinned cockily as he gestured towards the chessboard with his beer, "that I can check you in five moves."

Daniel stared at him, blinking before he slowly smiled. "Are you sure? You were never really good at this game."

"Please...it's all strategy and who better at it than a seasoned veteran?" Peering at the board again, mentally calculating, Jack waggled his eyebrows. "No, make that...four."

Rolling his eyes, Daniel retrieved his beer from the table and took a long sip before walking over to the couch again. Sitting down a short distance from where Jack was, Daniel didn't look at the chessboard. Mimicking Jack's drawl, he countered with, "Three."

Jack's smile faded a bit. He looked back down at the board. "You're bluffing."

"You know I'm bad at cards. I can't bluff."

"Yeah, well you've learned a lot over the years, big guy," Jack grumbled as he scratched his chin with a thumb. He glared at the board, then at Daniel. "Three, huh?"

"Could be two," Daniel added innocently.

Jack's eyebrow arched at the challenge. He reached out and touched his bishop with his index finger and thumb. Then he jerked it back. "Two?" he repeated.

"Or three," Daniel pretended to check his watch. He caught the dirty look Jack gave him and laughed. "Okay, maybe four is the right number."

"Thought so," grumbled Jack as he lifted his bishop.

"Then again...it could be three."

"Daniel!"

The laughter filtered out of the room and slowly carried into the comfortable night. The light inside the house stayed on for a very long time.

The End

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Author's Note: Thank you for reading. I know it was bit of a long ride. This novel's almost 7 years old now, wow. I want to thank the SG fandom, everyone over at Stargatefan, Cathy, Gatejunkie. This was originally a 3o page standalone where Dan was slated to die. It ballooned 900 pages more later thanks to them. I'd never done anything of this length before. It has been quite an experience. I hope it was worth the long read. Again, any related fic to the verse or cough, cough sequels will return back to Stargatefan (dot) com. Where it all began... :)


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